Refugees who were lawfully admitted to the United States could be arrested if they have not yet obtained a green card, a change to previous policy that is the Trump administration’s latest effort to scrutinize immigrants who were approved for status.
In a new memo, which was described in court filings on Wednesday, officials at the Department of Homeland Security said immigration agents would be required to detain refugees if they had not applied for legal permanent status after a year of living in the country.
Refugees would be “inspected and examined for admission to the United States” after being detained, according to the memo, which was issued on Wednesday by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It was unclear how long refugees could be kept in detention. According to the memo, they would be confined for “the reasonable length of time it takes” to re-examine their cases.
The memo is part of the Trump administration’s broad effort to target refugees and tighten pathways for immigrants to legally enter or remain in the United States. Last month, the Homeland Security Department announced that it would review thousands of refugee cases in Minnesota, requiring them to submit to new interviews and background checks amid a surge of federal immigration enforcement in the state.
In the following weeks, at least 100 refugees were arrested in Minnesota and sent to detention centers in Texas for interviews, lawyers, family members and faith leaders said. A federal judge later ordered immigration agents to stop detaining and deporting refugees in Minnesota and to immediately release those held for re-examination of their cases. On Thursday, a federal judge will hear arguments on whether to extend those temporary protections.
That judge’s order came after the Trump administration slashed the number of refugees accepted into the country. In October, the administration lowered the ceiling of refugee admissions to 7,500 for this fiscal year, down from the 125,000 cap the Biden administration had set the previous year. Federal officials also said they would prioritize slots for mostly white South Africans.
The new policy rescinds an Obama-era memo that had previously determined that a refugee’s failure to apply for legal permanent status within a year was not sufficient grounds to detain or deport them. In a statement, a Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson said the agency was enforcing immigration laws that required the federal government to inspect refugees after their first year in the United States.
“The memo almost reads like they think they have an obligation to detain refugees who don’t have green cards after one year of being in the United States, which is a wild interpretation because refugees can’t even apply for green cards until after a year,” said Sarah Pierce, a former policy analyst at Citizenship and Immigration Services who is now the director of social policy at the center-left think tank Third Way. “This is just yet another policy that’s being driven by removal numbers.”
Ms. Pierce added that the Trump administration’s pause on immigration applications filed by people from countries subject to the president’s travel ban would also make it harder for at least some refugees to obtain green cards.
Federal officials said the new directive was necessary to root out people with serious criminal backgrounds, identify those who posed national security risks and ensure that refugees did not fraudulently obtain lawful status.
Groups that provide assistance to refugees swiftly condemned the memo, saying it could strip the legal status of immigrants who had already been extensively vetted and welcomed into the United States after fleeing persecution. They also said they expected more refugees to be deported as a result of the efforts.
“This government will clearly stop at nothing to terrorize refugee communities, and really all immigrants, while trampling over our constitutional rights,” Laurie Ball Cooper, the vice president for U.S. legal programs at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a statement.
Immigrant advocacy groups said they expected the directive to largely affect recently arrived refugees. In the 2024 fiscal year alone, more than 100,000 refugees were admitted to the United States, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.
Madeleine Ngo covers immigration and economic policy for The Times.
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