EEOC to Rescind Enforcement Guidance on Criminal Background Checks. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) plans to rescind its “Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act,” which it most recently updated in 2012. The Commission has sent the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) a draft rescission of the guidance, characterized as a “final rule,” which likely means there will be no opportunity for public comment. The guidance states that an employer’s neutral criminal background check policy could have a disparate impact on protected applicants, and it strongly suggests that employers using background screens deploy a nine-factor “individualized assessment” to avoid potential liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC’s decision to rescind the guidance is consistent with the Commission’s and the administration’s deemphasis of the disparate impact theory of discrimination.
The guidance is an example of how policy debates evolve over time. In 2012, the background check guidance caused quite a stir within the business community, which expressed concern that the update potentially limited employers’ ability to protect employees and customers. Over the years, however, perspectives on the issue evolved, and the Commission came to reconsider its approach. Stephen R. Woods, Gustavo A. Suárez, Amie M. Willis, and Leah J. Shepherd have the details.
USCIS Would Prefer Not to Defer. This week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a proposed rule, titled, “Removing Deference to Prior USCIS Determinations of Eligibility.” The proposal would rescind the current regulation that requires USCIS, when processing an extension-of-stay request, to give “deference to a prior determination of the petitioner’s, applicant’s, or beneficiary’s eligibility.” USCIS argues that “the deference regulation and policy risk undermining program integrity by potentially reducing scrutiny of extension requests of nonimmigrant worker classifications, thereby potentially perpetuating erroneous prior approvals and creating an environment in which fraudulent and meritless petitions are less likely to be detected before approval.”
The proposal, which did not appear in the administration’s Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (“Regulatory Agenda”) released on July 3, 2026, is the latest iteration of a policy that has changed multiple times over recent administrations. Public comments on the proposal are due by November 13, 2026.
USCIS Finalizes Elimination of 540-Day Automatic Work Authorization Extension. On October 14, 2026, USCIS issued a final rule that officially ends the automatic extension of immigrants’ work authorizations while their work authorization renewals are pending. The change in policy had already been promulgated via an interim final rule (IFR) issued on October 30, 2025, and this week’s action adopts the rule—without changes to the IFR—permanently.
USCIS to Change Premium Processing? USCIS has sent OIRA a draft proposal, titled, “Amending the Premium Processing Timeframe.” Because the proposal did not appear in the Regulatory Agenda, no information about its contents has been made public. The Buzz expects this initial review period to last several weeks, after which USCIS will likely publicly release the proposal, potentially laying the groundwork for a lengthening of the applicable premium processing periods. The premium processing timeframes are currently fifteen, thirty, or forty-five business days.
The House Votes to Remain in D.C. On October 15, 1814, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to keep the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C. Just weeks earlier, in the midst of the War of 1812, the British Army set fire to many of the city’s public buildings, including the U.S. Treasury, the Capitol, and the White House. When Congress returned to Washington, D.C., in September 1814, it met temporarily in one of the few remaining public buildings—the U.S. Patent Office. The major topic of debate in the weeks that followed was whether to permanently move the capital to a more secure location. As with previous negotiations over the capital’s location, this debate generally divided along northern and southern lines, with legislators from northern states advocating for a move to Philadelphia or New York, and southerners arguing for remaining in the District of Columbia. Finally, on October 15, 1814, a resolution to move the capital to Philadelphia failed in the House by a vote of 74–83. Thereafter, Congress met at various locations throughout the city—including the Old Brick Capitol on the site of the current Supreme Court Building—until the Capitol was repaired.
