First 100 Days: USCIS Delivering on Making America Safe Again

 

Photo USCIS.gov Baltimore.

By USCIS.gov

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is aggressively working to ensure America’s national security by addressing vulnerabilities in immigration policies, reducing exploitation of humanitarian parole programs, and assisting enforcement agencies in identifying and removing illegal aliens.

In the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, USCIS has restored robust screening and vetting capabilities; re-emphasized fraud detection and deterrence; reduced exploitation of the immigration system through humanitarian and temporary protected status programs; in partnership with other agencies, helped reduce encounters at our southern border and increase safety at home, with violent criminal aliens rapidly being removed from our neighborhoods; and introduced commonsense policy and operational solutions to help protect Americans.

“In the first 100 days, USCIS put a stop to disastrous Biden-era ‘humanitarian’ policies that invited fraud and allowed criminal aliens to legally live and work in our communities; facilitated arrests of criminals attempting to gain immigration benefits; and for the first time in decades is ensuring every alien in the U.S. is registered as required by law,” said USCIS Spokesman Matthew Tragesser. “Aliens, immigration attorneys and non-government organizations take note: the days of exploiting our immigration system are over. Aliens who want to live and work in America need to do it legally or get out.”

Addressing Vulnerabilities, Restoring Trust in the Immigration System

USCIS implemented the Alien Registration Requirement (ARR), which strengthens national security, promotes accountability and upholds the rule of law. ARR allows USCIS and other agencies to track the presence of aliens in the U.S., review their criminal records, if any, and maintain awareness of their activities. USCIS recently developed an ARR Determination Tool that guides aliens through specific questions to help determine whether they must submit Form G-325R, Biographic Information (Registration). With almost 47,000 submissions as of April 29, USCIS is extensively promoting public awareness of this requirement and the penalties for non-compliance.

USCIS continues to deploy volunteers to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations. USCIS currently has ~450 volunteers detailed to ICE supporting 85 facilities across the country.

USCIS is actively engaged in cross-agency partnerships in immigration enforcement and public safety, including having facilitated 369 arrests at USCIS field offices since Jan. 20, 2025. Press releases highlighting USCIS involvement in arrests and convictions can be found in the USCIS Newsroom.

In cooperation with ICE, the Diplomatic Security Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland, USCIS played a critical role in taking down a large-scale marriage fraud scheme leading to the indictment of four ringleaders and the arrests of aliens attempting to defraud the immigration system.

USCIS is closing screening and vetting loopholes from the Biden Administration and prioritizing the safety of Americans by accurately applying Terrorism Related Inadmissibility Grounds to deny members of transnational crime organizations designated as foreign terrorist organizations access to immigration benefits.

Ending Exploitation Through Categorical Parole and Temporary Protected Status

USCIS is fulfilling the administration’s goal of terminating categorical programs that run contrary to U.S. policy. This includes stopping broad abuse of humanitarian parole authority by ending the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan parole program, and ensuring consideration of parole requests on a case-by-case basis. Approximately 531,000 aliens have been notified of the termination of their parole and employment authorization and encouraged to use the U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP Home app to report their departure from the United States.

Ending the exploitation and abuse of Temporary Protected Status, USCIS rescinded the prior administration’s extension of Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status and ended the extension of Venezuela’s 2023 Temporary Protected Status designation.

Restoring Stronger Safeguards and Commonsense Policies

USCIS is restoring robust screening and vetting capabilities, enabling us to detect aliens with potentially harmful intent and to deter them from trying to enter the United States. USCIS is ensuring officers have access to the tools and training needed to detect immigration fraud and protect national security and is actively increasing awareness of the consequences of immigration fraud. Aliens who use false information or deceitful practices to unfairly obtain immigration benefits will face serious consequences, including prison, steep fines, and removal from the U.S.

Some of our screening and vetting efforts since Jan. 20, 2025, include:

• Completing 7,120 benefit fraud records;
• Identifying fraud in 4,664 number of records;
• Referring 462 benefit fraud records and 4,672 egregious public safety records to ICE for criminal investigation or enforcement;
• Completing 2,271 site visits to workplaces; and
• Screening 3,568 subjects’ social media activity.

USCIS adopted social media vetting for anti-Americanism to consider social media content that indicates an alien endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic or anti-American activity as a negative factor in any USCIS discretionary analysis when adjudicating immigration benefit requests.

USCIS initiated an overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to eliminate transaction fees for participating state, local, territorial, and tribal government users, streamline mass alien status checks, and integrate criminal records, immigration timelines, and addresses into results. This will help prevent aliens from exploiting taxpayer-funded public benefits or voting illegally.

USCIS returned to its historical policy of recognizing only two sexes, male and female, that are binary, biological, and not changeable. USCIS is working to protect the integrity of women’s sports by ensuring that aliens traveling to the United States to compete do so only in sporting events for their biological sex.

USCIS issued new Covid vaccination guidance, waiving all requirements for aliens applying for Green Cards to show that they received COVID-19 vaccination.

USCIS ended coordination on naturalization ceremonies with sanctuary cities that restrict the ability of law enforcement to cooperate with DHS to enforce immigration laws and keep American communities safe from illegal and violent aliens.