New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda

The new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will likely focus the agency on the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda. On July 15, 2025, Joseph Edlow began as USCIS director following a Senate confirmation vote along party lines. Edlow’s job will be to implement the policies of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. The agenda will include restricting asylum, directing adjudicators to tighten the approval process for immigration benefits applications and ending or controlling the ability of international students to work in the United States after graduating from U.S. universities.

USCIS Will Be An Immigration Enforcement Agency

In an opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation, Joseph Edlow said, “USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.” That sends a message to adjudicators: Treat applications similarly to those during Donald Trump’s first term, when denials increased and Requests for Evidence skyrocketed at USCIS.

In a question submitted to Edlow, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), the committee’s ranking member, wrote, “The Homeland Security Act does not include language stating that USCIS is an immigration enforcement agency. . . . The statute makes clear that unlike ICE and Customs and Border Protection, USCIS’s primary mission is adjudication and processing of applications, not enforcement. Will you retract your inaccurate statement that ‘USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency?’” Edlow replied in writing, “No. The statement was not inaccurate as the adjudication of immigration benefits is inherently an act of enforcement of the immigration laws.”

Jon Wasden of Wasden Law said the USCIS transition from a “service” to an “enforcement” agency began under Barack Obama and intensified during Donald Trump’s first term. He notes that even during the Biden administration, USCIS continued to take funds and reallocate them to the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate within USCIS, which he believes violates the Homeland Security Act. Wasden is harsh in his assessment: “Both parties have created an environment where applicants are seen as the enemy, treated as criminals, and officers are above the law. I wish I could lay all this at the feet of Stephen Miller, but his Democrat predecessors share the blame.”

Still, USCIS differed significantly under Joe Biden compared to Trump’s first term. The Biden administration’s final rule on H-1B visas proved to be far more favorable for employers, universities and high-skilled foreign nationals than anything produced during the Trump years. Policy experts viewed the Trump administration’s interim final rule on H-1B visas, which a court blocked for violating the Administrative Procedure Act, as designed to prevent, or at least discourage, employers from using the H-1B category by narrowing eligibility and piling on requirements. A Department of Labor interim final rule would have priced many H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market by inflating the required salaries.

“Positive actions the Biden administration took on high-skilled immigration included taking steps to issue an ‘unprecedented’ number of employment-based green cards, increasing the validity of Employment Authorization Documents for up to five years, providing favorable guidance for O-1A visas and national interest waivers and making it easier for some employment-based green card applicants to stay if they have ‘compelling circumstances,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “O-1A visa filings and requests for national interest waivers increased significantly after the new guidance.”

The NFAP analysis noted that the Trump administration carried out what judges found to be unlawful policies on H-1B visas for nearly four years. An H-1B is often the only practical way for a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, to work long term in the United States. Denial rates for H-1B petitions for initial employment reached 24% in FY 2018 and 21% in FY 2019, compared to 6% in FY 2015. (H-1B petitions for “initial” employment are primarily for new employment, typically a case that would count against the H-1B annual limit.) Only lawsuits, court rulings and a legal settlement ended the policies.

Edlow served as chief counsel and deputy director for policy at USCIS during part of the first Trump administration, when these policies were implemented and defended in court.

Immigration attorneys expect Joseph Edlow and his team to chip away wherever possible at policies the Biden administration implemented that were beneficial to employers and high-skilled foreign nationals and immigrants. In an interview with Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times, Edlow also set his sights on making it more difficult for immigrants to pass the civics test for naturalization by increasing the number of required correct answers.

Edlow And Miller Hope to Dismantle America’s Immigration Talent Pipeline

Joseph Edlow made clear during his confirmation hearing that he hopes to dismantle America’s immigration talent pipeline by ending the ability of international students to work on Optional Practical Training or STEM OPT after graduating from U.S. universities. Economists, businesses and educators say that ending post-graduation OPT and STEM OPT would halt America’s best programs for attracting and retaining international talent.

At the confirmation hearing, Edlow discussed his plans in response to a question from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) about what changes he would make to Optional Practical Training if confirmed as USCIS director.

“I think the way in which OPT has been handled over the past four years, with the help of certain decisions coming out of the D.C. Circuit Court, have been a real problem in terms of misapplication of the law,” said Edlow. “What I want to see would be essentially a regulatory and subregulatory program that would allow us to remove the ability for employment authorizations for F-1 students beyond the time that they are in school.”

There already exists a lesser-used program, Curricular Practical Training, for international students to work while in school. Edlow plans to use his position within the administration to eliminate OPT and STEM OPT, at least in practical terms, by removing the ability of F-1 students to gain employment authorization after completing their coursework.

Despite Edlow’s disagreement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decided 2-1 in October 2022 that the Department of Homeland Security allowing international students to work on OPT and STEM OPT is legally permissible.

Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, has long opposed international students working in the United States. While on the staff of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Miller helped draft legislation that would have ended OPT and compelled international students to leave the United States for a decade (for undergraduates and master’s degree recipients) before they could work in H-1B status. Ph.D. recipients would need to gain two years of experience outside of America before obtaining an H-1B visa.

Optional Practical Training allows international students to work for 12 months in their field of study before or after completing their course requirements. STEM OPT allows students to gain practical experience through working an additional 24 months (beyond OPT) in a science, technology, engineering or math field.

For many immigration opponents, ending OPT and STEM OPT is perhaps mainly about preventing international students from obtaining H-1B status. The Bush administration favored granting international students an additional 24 months on STEM OPT to improve their chances in the annual H-1B lottery.

Economists view H-1B restrictions and ending OPT and STEM OPT as shortsighted and likely to push more hiring and resources outside of the United States. “The clearest evidence is that foreign graduates of U.S. universities cause major increases in innovation,” according to research by George Mason University economics professor Michael Clemens. “Immigration policy that broadly seeks ways to entice foreign graduates of U.S. universities to remain in the United States, the overwhelming mass of evidence suggests, would serve the national interest. Terminating OPT would do the opposite.”

The National Academy of Sciences pointed to research by Britta Glennon, an assistant professor at the Wharton UPENN, that “shows that H-1B restrictions and the inability of companies to hire a sufficient number of high-skilled workers in the United States results in offshoring tech jobs and reducing R&D investment in the United States and leads companies to send more jobs, resources, and innovations outside the United States.”

Two other policies that Edlow can direct or influence would restrict the ability of international students to remain in the United States. First, an upcoming rule will change the way USCIS allots H-1B petitions by “weighting” the H-1B selection process to favor individuals at the highest salary levels. The process would occur whenever the agency receives more H-1B registrations than the annual limit of 85,000 would permit. The rule, which could be published within weeks, is expected to make it much more difficult for international students and other early-career professionals to gain H-1B status.

Second, the Trump administration is likely to move forward with a rule to end duration of status for international students by allowing only fixed admission periods. USCIS adjudicators could decide on hundreds of thousands (and cumulatively millions) of extension applications that students will be forced to file if they hope to remain in the United States beyond an initial grant of two or four years.

The more restrictive USCIS adjudicators are told to be on granting extensions, the less likely international students will choose to come to America. Despite Donald Trump’s favorable statements about international students on a Silicon Valley podcast in 2024, his administration’s policies will result in fewer international students remaining in the United States. It’s become clear that Stephen Miller, not Donald Trump, makes the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“Edlow will definitely work with Miller to kill the OPT system as well as change the H-1B lottery selection criteria,” said Jon Wasden. “Processing delays will increase across the board. This is the same tactic they previously used to threaten H-4 EAD for the spouses of H-1B visa holders in Trump’s first term.” He notes that increasing procedural requirements, such as biometrics and new forms, can sometimes have the same impact as a regulation that overtly restricts a program or category. A lawsuit halted USCIS’s implementation of biometrics requirements that had caused long delays in renewing employment authorization for the spouses of H-1B visa holders.

Immigration attorneys say Edlow’s expertise is in asylum and removal. That means he will likely be at the center of finding ways to streamline asylum denials or closures to facilitate the Trump administration’s enforcement priorities.

An NFAP analysis of the Trump administration’s immigration policies found that during Donald Trump’s first term, his administration did not enact or propose any measures to expand the entry of high-skilled foreign nationals or immigrants to the United States. Joseph Edlow’s role as USCIS director will be to ensure that record continues in Trump’s second term.

By Stuart Anderson | Senior Contributor | Forbes.com