By:  Richard Hanus, Esq.

July 7, 2025

The immigration stories making news these days are almost exclusively about the cruel and unusual ways our government is enforcing our immigration laws and stirring up fear in immigrant communities.   These stories are numerous, real and the product of this administration’s deliberate campaign to present our immigration enforcement apparatus as muscular, harsh and unforgiving, and perhaps in line with what is seen as their constituents’ expectations.

On the other hand, our immigration system is also working quite efficiently in processing and approving eligible applicants for Employment Authorization Documents, work visas, Permanent Resident (Green Card) status and U.S. citizenship (naturalization).  Further, our immigration court/deportation proceedings system is mainly working as it should (although in the face of massive backlogs), where foreign nationals with valid defenses or strong applications for relief, are granted the right to reside legally in the U.S.  These diametrically opposed states of affairs are real and have left our nation’s immigrants scared, confused and but sometimes also elated.

The survival of a democracy surely depends on many factors, including law and order and the enforcement of laws that are the product of a society’s collective wisdom as spoken through a democratically elected law-making body.  But that does not mean, fairness and sensitivity to the human condition must be taken out of the equation.  Further, due process of law is a constitutional mandate that applies to all individuals living in the U.S. and no matter their immigration status.   These principals are especially relevant to our nation’s immigration enforcement conversation, and how we address our population of 12 million + undocumented.  Dating back to the enactment of  President Reagan’s last legalization plan, this is a segment of our society we have been benefitting from and depending on for generations, and comprised, by and large, of individuals who are otherwise law abiding, productive and tax paying.  Millions among this segment have lived here for more than a decade, have established family units with U.S. citizen family members, own homes, and are contributing members of our society.

In today’s America, we see an almost daily stream of Trump administration policies posing a threat to immigrants with uncertain or no status, including:

  • Abruptly terminating programs allowing hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals Temporary Protected Status from designated nations facing humanitarian crises,
  • Revocations of thousands of F-1 student visas, although federal courts have intervened to reverse the vast majority of these wrongful terminations,
  • Detention facilities opened and with the express purpose of presenting cruel and inhumane images e.g. “Alligator Alcatraz”
  • Courthouse arrests of foreign nationals recently allowed entry into the U.S. to present their asylum claims, forcing these applicants to present their cases while in detention,
  • Loud and visible ICE operations in public areas, and with arrests of undocumented immigrants, both criminal and noncriminal,
  • Executive orders seeking an end to birthright citizenship – although such executive measures will almost assuredly not survive judicial review due to clear constitutional safeguards.

But on the other hand, while the cruel, loud hammer of immigration enforcement gets the public’s attention from day to day, thousands of qualified foreign nationals are having their applications for Employment Authorization Documents, Permanent Resident status (Green Cards) and Naturalization efficiently processed and approved by U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Citizenship and Immigration Services.   The same goes for employers’ petitions for work visas and as well as for foreign nationals who are eventually having their day in court to present their claims for asylum or relief before the Immigration Courts.   The processes may not necessarily always be easy or pretty, especially in today’s environment, but the rules and regulations governing most aspects of our immigration agencies’ benefits sector still work.

Our nation thankfully remains governed by laws and due process.  We have a Constitution, and checks and balances, where three branches of government work together and keep our nation afloat, and with our nation’s judiciary playing a particularly crucial role these days.   When it comes to making plans about interacting with our immigration system, it’s never been more important to proceed carefully and only after being fully informed of your rights and true options available under the law.

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