President Trump’s Immigration Impact, Part 1: Analyzing the First 140 Days

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Meagan Dziura: Hi everyone, and welcome to a special immigration podcast episode, addressing immigration impacts under the Trump presidency. I’m Meagan Dziura. I am of counsel out of the Raleigh, North Carolina, office, and I have here Jim Plunkett, who is out of our D.C. office. He is one of our government affairs shareholders, and I invited him here to do a follow-up to our pre-election podcast, where we looked at the two different potential administrations, what we thought would happen with immigration if either one was elected, and now we’re here.
It’s been a long four years; we’re only 140 days in. And we’re just going to do sort of a quick update on what’s been going on in immigration and hopefully hit all the sort of notes that have been going on. So, since Trump won the election, I had a baby. Trump was sworn in; he did some executive orders. So, Jim, from your side, are you feeling the impacts from the first 140 days, or is it just relating to immigration that I’m really feeling a lot of impacts?

Jim Plunkett: No, I mean, feeling the impacts would be a little bit of an understatement, Meagan, and thank you for having me back. I think this is a great opportunity to revisit that discussion that we had several months ago because we plan so much, and we sort of looked into the crystal ball, and I think a lot of what we talked about has sort of come to fruition, but like everything else in the D.C. policy world, the devil is in the details. And I don’t think really any of us really anticipated the scope and the breadth and the speed at which a lot of these changes have occurred.
So hopefully, our brief discussion today will provide our listeners with a little bit of a nice background as to where we’ve been, and where we are, and where we’re going. And yeah, before we started talking, I said one of the things that I wanted to mention very briefly at the outset is the use of executive orders. And this has become a favorite tool of presidents in previous administrations, right? It’s not just the Trump administration. We remember President Obama famously said, “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.”
The DACA order was an executive action, so it’s not executive orders—obviously—didn’t start with Trump, but he has really leaned into them quite a bit as a favorite tool for his policy-making agenda. And in particular, he’s used them quite a bit in the immigration space. And we saw literally on the first day, multiple executive orders dealing with immigration. Now, most of these dealt with or concern illegal immigration, the southern border, asylees, refugees, that sort of sphere, and the immigration policy world. There is the enhanced vetting there, the executive order that he issued right there at the beginning. And we’ll talk a little bit about that, how that’s sort of coming into play these days.
I think with regard to students, most specifically, but it really demonstrates the use of the executive orders really demonstrates, I think President Trump’s preference for enacting policy changes this way. We will talk a little bit about the regulatory process in a few minutes, and Congress, do they still have a role to play at all? But the executive order, the use of executive orders is clearly a favorite tool of President Trump. And so, because of that, it sort of puts us all on edge as to what’s going to come next, and the idea that that can happen at any time. Legislation takes a while; it percolates; it goes through hearings; there’s amendments; it goes through the House; it goes through the Senate. Same thing with a regulatory process.
It’s a lengthy process with notice and comment rulemaking. But when these executive orders or executive actions like terminating TPS or the CHMV program, and those can sort of happen spontaneously without warning and have a pretty immediate effect, it puts stakeholders on edge. And I think we’re going to be on edge for the remaining four years. Travel bans, that’s another thing. When is the travel ban? Are there going to be travel bans happening? So that’s just something, and then unfortunately, I don’t have a good advice for you or for our listeners on how to handle that or respond to that, but it just is what it is that we’re always on the brink of a new executive order that could flip immigration policy on its head.

Meagan Dziura: Yeah, no, that’s a really good point. And to your point about we’re not really sure what’s coming, but we have to be on our toes. I will say we have sort of a group within the practice where as soon as one of these comes out, and it doesn’t have to be just an executive order, but something in the executive branch, as soon as something comes out, we’re drafting up an alert and trying to really analyze and see what impacts, if any, would have on our client’s population.
So everyone is really sprung and ready when these things come down, which is good. But of course, it just takes a lot of coordination to really make sure that our clients are informed as soon as these things happen.

Jim Plunkett: And it’s pretty unique to our immigration practice group now that I’m thinking about it, Meagan, that because of what I just said about Congress and the regulatory process, our colleagues in Ogletree who are in other practice areas, of course, they’re on their toes and they’re ready to respond and serve their clients quickly. But immigration is, I think, uniquely positioned, but maybe it sounds a little bit too positive, but is in this unique position that things can change on a dime.
I’ve heard stories about the first Trump administration about some of our colleagues running to the airport when some of the travel bans were happening. So, I don’t envy you, but as you said, we’ve got these protocols and processes in place to make sure that the clients get the information that they need as soon as we get it.

Meagan Dziura: Yeah, I used to, in the first Trump presidency, I was practicing, and I carried around G-28s in my car. In case G-28 is a form, you can enter an appearance as an attorney for someone who’s filing an immigration petition. I carried them around in my car in case I need it at a moment’s notice to enter my appearance for someone who may be in trouble. I haven’t started that this time, but we’ll see. Even though we are seeing these immediate sort of everyone jump to try to figure out the impacts, potential impacts, I will say not everything has had an actual impact yet.
We are still seeing almost business as usual with approvals, and with visas still being approved for the majority of our clients, it’s really just that things have become more difficult in the process of getting that thing filed with the government. So that’s the good part, is we haven’t seen a huge devastating impact on the actual ability to keep people work authorized. I think that could change. We’ll talk a little bit about the scrutiny on student visas, but at least with H-1Bs, we haven’t seen a huge impact or even L’s transfers from, regardless of the country of origin, right now. And not saying that couldn’t change, but so far, it’s been still okay on that end.

Jim Plunkett: Yeah, I think it’s a little bit, and I don’t know if we talked about this on our previous podcast, Meagan, but I know that I’ve had other discussions with our colleagues about this and clients about this that we all sort of figured that the unlawful immigration policy initiatives would happen first, that that would be the sort first phase. And of course, yes, we’re seeing impacts on employment-based immigration policy, which we’ll talk about, but this sort of direct and immediate assault hasn’t happened yet, but it very well could be. And we’ll sort of wrap up our discussion talking about what we think might be happening in the future. But yeah, I agree with you about that sort of so far, so good, I guess, or everything’s all relative, right? And so, relatively speaking, and knock on wood, so far so good.

Meagan Dziura: Yeah, just everyone’s on their toes and I think prepping for the worst, which it’s always good to be prepared for that, so.

Jim Plunkett: For sure.

Meagan Dziura: I’ll just go over a little bit about what we want to talk about today. We’re going to talk about just legal immigration impacts, and that’ll include students, TPS rollbacks. There’s a recent DACA, a recent development in DACA. I’ll go over a little bit of enforcement. And then Jim’s going to talk about legislative actions regulatory agenda. And I think throughout we’re just going to talk about the future outlook, but we can end with a discussion of that. Also, start with the big things we’re seeing in legal immigration, and I’ll mostly focus on employment-based immigration, what I work in, but this is going to include students.
So, we’ve had some developments in the past, literally two days for impacting F-1 students. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement yesterday that said, under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with DHS to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.
We’ll also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong. So, this is the latest in the screening on foreign students. I have a whole timeline of how this has been building, but I just want everyone to keep in mind this has a broader impact than just students coming to the U.S. for say, a four-year bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree, because the F-1 and J-1, so that’s the students and the exchange visitor visa, because those are used by also Ph.D. researchers.
Those can also be used for postdocs. So, someone has a Ph.D. and wants to remain as a researcher. This also could be just J-1 exchange researchers, often including professors, med students, who use J-1 doctors who may be in residency or research, also use J-1s. So that’s just in the university setting. Outside the university setting, F-1s can actually get work authorization with employment in industry, and they can work after graduation for up to three years, depending on their program of study.
And so these graduates, at least what we see, they’re typically working in these high-tech or research fields. So, by going after these student visas, it’s not actually just going to be limited to universities. I think this actually will have a big ripple through businesses. So right now, we’re kind of preparing our clients for the potential disruptions for, of course, Chinese national students if they’re going to start revoking work authorization. But there could be significant delays in new student visa processing everywhere for any student from any origin. And so that’s something that we’re really looking at now. We’re not sure how far it’s going to go or if this additional scrutiny could expand to other visas that Chinese nationals are holding in the U.S. So, this impact could be really, really broad.

Jim Plunkett: Yeah, I mean is as you mentioned, Meagan, foreign national students have been a target of the administration, I think, in a way that many policy watchers didn’t really expect. Though we know that these kinds of programs are probably not going to be favored by this administration. And I think the statement from Rubio that dovetails with the news that broke earlier this week, that also ultimately came from him, likely a cable to consulates to say, Hey, don’t bother scheduling anymore. Visa interviews with folks who are planning on studying in the United States, because we’re going to be implementing some new social media vetting protocols,
Which probably has its impetus in that enhanced vetting executive order. I mentioned at the outset we’ve got a statement about China, the statement about canceling. We’re not scheduling new interviews. And then just last week, Meagan, the President, Trump’s nominee to run USCIS, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow. He was at his confirmation hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Michael Lee asked him about Optional Practical Training, which you alluded to there with the three-year extension. And Lee sort of gave him this open-ended question about what Edlow would like to see if he were confirmed as the director of USCIS.
And this is the quote from Edlow, and I’ve got it here in front of me. And he said, what I want to see would be essentially a regulatory and sub-regulatory program that would allow us to remove the ability for employment authorizations for F-1 students beyond the time that they are in school. Clearly, he’s not a fan of STEM OPT, and I think this could be sort of that first, or not first glance know sort of an initial foreshadowing of that, of how the employment-based immigration policy is going to be the new focus or a new front that the administration is going to open up in their immigration policy efforts.

Meagan Dziura: And this has been sort of a pattern since the beginning of April. We started seeing ICE terminating SEVIS records of F-1s and J-1s, and SEVIS is the program by which universities sort of issue paperwork for F-1s and J-1s in order to study in the U.S. It’s not actually run by USCIS; it’s run by Department of State, and ICE oversees it. So, we actually started seeing, just without warning, these records being terminated, and it was sort of linked. People believe that students who may have been active on social media or may have been in protests or may have had disciplinary records, then there was a bit of an uproar.
These SEVIS records were then reinstated, and in some cases, the Department of State revoked some actual visas for people to not be able to travel on. F-1s, it’s been a bit of a back and forth with the F-1 visas, which really leads me to believe that they really are trying to go after them. I think they’re trying to find the best way to do it, and the best way to do it may be without some challenges.

Jim Plunkett: And I think, too, Meagan, that the university students sort of fit in this. If you picture a Venn diagram, the administration’s policy priorities, and you’ve got immigration and diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-Semitism, know, combating anti-Semitism, and right in the middle of that Venn diagram is higher education and colleges and universities.

Meagan Dziura: And I think we could talk a lot about the student impact. We could talk a lot about, or we could go on for a while about the student impact.

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