What if the officer reviewing your green card application could also slap on handcuffs and haul you away?

That’s the bombshell change Rosanna is unpacking in this week’s episode of Immigration Weekly. USCIS officers – once just the paperwork people – are now being given full law enforcement powers. Guns, badges, arrests, even expedited removals. Rosanna breaks down what this shift really means, why it’s happening, and why she believes it’s a dangerous overreach that could turn routine interviews into something far more intimidating.

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Transcript

Everyone’s talking about U.S. immigration law, but nobody really knows how it works. I’m Rosanna Berardi. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, a former immigration inspector at the border, university professor, and founder and managing partner of Berardi Immigration Law.

I’ve done nothing but U.S. immigration law for over 30 years, and it’s time to stop the misinformation on all sides. I’m going to tell you how it all works, the inside story. This is Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another action-packed episode of Immigration Weekly with yours truly, Rosanna Berardi. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The immigration house is on fire and we’re worried about the curtains.

I read that somewhere. It’s not my quote or analogy, but damn do I love it. Why?

Because there are a lot of problems in the immigration world. There’s always been a lot of problems. This is my 28th year being an immigration lawyer.

Trump Era Changes and USCIS Expansion

I used to work for the federal government. I’ve done this job for a long time. It’s always been clunky, messy.

The law, old, outdated, antiquated. So in comes the Trump administration. Now remember, the U.S. southern border, big mess in the last decade or so. This administration elected on the sole premise of fixing immigration. Yes, let’s fix it. Let’s fix the law.

Let’s have a guest worker program. Let’s stop the nonsense. Most Americans, despite your side of the aisle, agree with this.

But like in parenting, you give them an inch, they take a mile, those darn kids. The Trump administration, whoa, big announcement this week. Now stay with me here.

I had to read this one a few times because I don’t know, I spent five years with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service. I come from a law enforcement background. I’ve appeared in front of Customs and Border Protection on probably thousands of business applications throughout my career.

We send many, many, many, many, many of our clients to U.S. citizenship and immigration services offices throughout the United States for their applications to be reviewed. What is happening now? So under the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after September 11th, the government is divided under a couple different agencies.

So we have an enforcement agency called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE. That’s a cool acronym, ICE. Their name is self-explanatory.

They enforce U.S. immigration and customs laws, meaning if somebody’s breaking those laws, these are the enforcement agents, the law enforcement agents that are going to come in and take care of that. On the flip side of that coin, there is a processing agency called U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. There are thousands and thousands of U.S. CIS officers in the United States. If you live in a major city, there is likely a U.S. CIS office in your town or community, and you go there to file certain applications. You can walk in and ask questions. If you married a foreign national, you generally go there for your immigration interview.

New Arrest Powers for USCIS

So U.S. CIS always been a paperwork and processing agency until an announcement this week changed that and has now given them the authority, hope you’re sitting down, to arrest people in front of them that are allegedly committing fraud and misrepresentation. So what happened this week? Well, in typical government fashion, the government made an announcement saying, we are now giving U.S. CIS special agent authority. Special agent, what does that mean? Well, they can carry guns, handcuffs, badges. They can make arrests on the spot.

Is this happening today, September 5th? No. Government announced it and said it’ll go into effect in about 30 days.

So early October of 2025. What concerns me? The agency was supposed to put this type of announcement out for public comment.

Generally, there’s a 30 or 60 day public comment period required for any change or a fundamental change of a law. Government said, no, we’re not putting this one out to public comment and we’re going to fast track it and it’s going to go into effect in October. Beginning of October 2025, your local U.S. CIS officer slash agent will now have the ability to arrest people. Will this be held up in court? Maybe. The fast tracking is always concerning, but let’s take a step back.

So U.S. CIS, again, these are federal employees whose jobs are to conduct an administrative review of an application. So immigration lawyers like myself, I’m in Buffalo, New York. We represent lots and lots of clients every year who get married.

They live in Buffalo and they get married to someone from Toronto and we get hired to prepare their green card application. I’m sure you’ve seen the movie time and time again, Green Card, where, you know, someone gets married in order to stay in the United States. Well, a part of that process is to appear for an interview at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. That’s U.S. CIS in my world. If there was an allegation, if the officer didn’t believe that the relationship was indeed true or entered into love, not immigration, they would punt that case rather than approving it. They would punt it to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

You know, the agency that just got a billion dollars under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a billion dollars to increase enforcement. They would punt that to them and they would investigate. Well, this is changing all of that.

Risks, Training, and Overreach Concerns

U.S. CIS officers can take care of this themselves now. No more extra steps and delays. Listen, I’m entitled to say this.

Since when does the federal government care about extra steps and delays? That’s the world that we all live in. Nonetheless, they’re keeping it under this roof of U.S. CIS. So why this rule and why now? Do we have a fraud problem in the United States regarding immigration benefits? Maybe.

Hard to get data on this one. We know every year U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processes hundreds of millions of applications and they do detailed screening on every single one. So the latest stat I could pull was from 2023.

They said they did 136 million screenings. That’s a lot. Of those, how many cases are fraudulent?

About 10,000. Small numbers. Small, small numbers.

From that number, you know, ICE investigates. Do they go into full criminal investigation? We’re talking about a thousand cases or less.

I don’t know. This seems like a lot. This is a historic change.

This is giving administrative officers law enforcement capabilities and is blurring the line between ICE and U.S. CIS. They always had separate functions. U.S. CIS would review that paperwork. If there was a problem, ICE would then investigate that problem. Now we have an agency that is reviewing and enforcing the law. I don’t know.

What are these officers able to do now? Full federal arrest powers. They can arrest individuals that violate immigration laws.

They can carry guns while on duty, execute search warrants to gather evidence at home. They can arrest. They can conduct surveillance and investigations.

Here’s one that’s concerning to me. The U.S. CIS director, the person that runs the office, is now able to do something called expedited removal. Now this is not a new concept.

Expedited removal dates back from the last update of the U.S. immigration law in 1996 that allowed people to be removed from the United States without due process if they’re caught committing fraud or misrepresentation. Expedited removal says we’ve made this determination. Generally happens at the borders.

You’ve lied. You’ve misrepresented yourself. You said you were U.S. citizen when you’re not. Guess what? Goodbye. No lengthy court processing.

No lawyers. No anything. Well, now they’re letting U.S. CIS make that determination at a high level. What’s going to happen? Well, there’s a 30-day runway on this. I used to work for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and when I worked for them, I had to go to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glencoe, Georgia, where I learned to arrest people, shoot a gun, have my badge, all these law enforcement tactics.

It was an intensive training program, something that generally takes more than 30 days. So now all of these officers are going to have to be trained. They’re saying this goes into effect in October.

Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. I think it’s a longer training program.

Advice for Applicants and Final Thoughts

What does this mean? Well, listen, if you are complying 100% with the U.S. immigration law, which you always should, and you’re going for your interview, you’re going to be fine, fine, fine. So don’t worry.

Don’t stay up at night. Don’t lose sleep. But if somebody paid you $10,000 to marry them to get a green card, don’t go to that office.

You can get in big trouble. It’s always been that way, except for the fact that that trouble used to take longer to get into because it had to go through two federal agencies. Now they can arrest you on the spot.

Okay. So the government is all over this. Again, if you’re following the rules, no worries.

Rule breakers probably should stay out of the federal buildings, but nonetheless, I don’t know. This seems like a huge overreach to me. My editorial on this, again, is this really the problem in our U.S. immigration system? Is it all this fraud? Are people committing so much fraud that we need to deputize the USCIS officers and give them full law enforcement power? I don’t think so.

Again, caveat, I don’t know what the government has in terms of stats because very hard to find that information online. But this seems like an overreach. People going to USCIS offices are the ones following the rules.

They’re completing the forms, paying fees, hiring law firms like mine, making sure they are 100% above board. Are some people lying? Probably.

You get a group of 100 people, there’s going to be some liars in there. Is it a national crisis? Do we need to do this?

I’m going to argue all day long on this one. No. Okay.

This is part of that messaging that goes back to, we’re going to fix immigration. Well, guess what people? Knock on the doors of Congress to fix immigration.

I think this is such an overreach, such a waste of time and money. This process at USCIS actually works. It’s a little clunky.

You have to pay a fee and wait, but it works. It’s worked for a long time. Why we’re now going to turn this into combative law enforcement atmosphere?

I don’t like it. I think it’s going to create a lot of headaches. I think it’s going to instill a lot of unnecessary fear.

And I think this one might be challenged in a court of law. So for now, make sure everything’s above board. Again, if you have immigration counsel and you’re telling the truth, you’re not going to have any problems.

If you’re trying to pull a fast one, always a dangerous game with the federal government. And yeah, that’s not right. You shouldn’t be able to do that.

Just know that it’s going to be a lot quicker and a lot easier for the government to arrest you and potentially deport you without your day in court. You guys, I don’t know. This is year 28 for me.

Every time I read something that comes out of my industry, it’s just, it’s insane. It’s alarming the pace to which it’s coming out, short-stepping some of the requirements. Eh, not good.

Not good for democracy, but be that as it may, this one’s going into effect beginning of October. We’ll continue to keep you posted. If you think this is interesting, fascinating, wow, Rosanna, I never knew this.

Share this one with your friends. Subscribe to our podcast. Hey, even give us a review.

This is good stuff. Thank you. Have a great day.

This was Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi. Thanks for joining. Be sure to connect with me, Rosanna Berardi on LinkedIn, or go to our law firm at berardiimmigrationlaw.com.

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