Webinar: "Trump 2.0: Tuesday Updates With Guest Zach Ahlstrom"

Transcript:

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another one of our Tuesday immigration webinars. Today, we’re going to talk about Trump 2.0, some immigration updates. The focus of today’s webinar is going to be on some of the bigger policy changes that we’ve seen in the past several months. And I’m going to give a little insight into what I, as a practicing attorney, have actually seen. We’re going to take a look at these policies, do a quick overview of what the policies are, and then I’m going to dive into some real-world examples and explain how I’ve seen these policies play out in real life.

Now keep in mind: this is all fluid. Things can certainly change. People can have different experiences. That’s the nature of a discretionary immigration system. But I think real-world examples are good insight and good knowledge for people to have. So we’re going to talk about:

• Changes to naturalization interviews

• Increased vetting of visa applicants, including social media screening, and how that’s impacting individuals applying for visas at consulates abroad

• Expanded public charge determinations and how that’s impacting visa applicants — I’ve even seen it impacting people at the border with U.S. Customs

• The travel ban — the expansion of the travel ban, adding seven new countries — and how that’s impacting travelers and visa applicants

• New visa trends in Toronto for E-2s (a little specific to Canadians and Canadians applying for E-2 visas), but there are some trends I’ll briefly touch on at the end

So to start, we’ll talk about major changes to naturalization interviews. The biggest and probably most impactful change has been to the good moral character requirement.

So for a little background: when you’re applying for naturalization, you have to demonstrate that you’re a person of good moral character. In the past, this was kind of a very quick analysis by a USCIS officer. They would essentially look for disqualifying factors such as criminal history or other negative factors that would impact someone’s eligibility for naturalization. And even in those cases, you could overcome negative factors with proof of rehabilitation. Now it’s more of an affirmative determination, where applicants need to show they have positive factors that make them eligible for naturalization and show that they have good moral character.

Some of those positive factors are:

• Community involvement

• Being a family caregiver

• Educational achievements

• Lawful employment and financial responsibility

• Tax compliance

• And of course, a clean criminal record

So officers have a lot more discretion in how they assess applicants’ eligibility for naturalization, especially when they’re looking at that good moral character requirement.

We’re also seeing changes to how the interviews are conducted. What I mean by that is officers are now reading Part 9 of the form verbatim and asking the security questions to applicants verbatim. And those questions are about arrests, criminal history, immigration violations, severe crimes, and associations with criminal organizations. They’re asking applicants these questions verbatim and asking them to answer them, and your answers have to match. They want to hear it from your mouth. They want to make sure everything matches the paper application that was submitted.

Additionally, we are seeing potential heightened scrutiny, and they’re reinstating what’s called personal investigations or neighborhood checks; where officers are now authorized to go around and check in with neighbors, employers, coworkers to assess whether or not someone is a person of good moral character and eligible for naturalization.

Personally, I haven’t seen any of our clients experience this. I’ve heard that it is happening. We haven’t seen it directly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. This used to be a requirement that was waived for a very long time. It’s no longer waived. Officers have this authority. So there is a possibility that in some naturalization cases, USCIS could be conducting neighborhood interviews.

Now, let’s talk about what I’m actually seeing in practice with our naturalization clients. I would say the biggest impact we have seen out of all of this is that the interviews are longer. That makes sense because they’re going through the form verbatim and asking people to reaffirm the information that was included in their initial submission. So we’re seeing longer interviews. We’re seeing longer wait times for interviews, specifically in more popular locations (think Miami, LA, densely populated locations, New York/Manhattan). We’re seeing heavier scrutiny because of the new policy in terms of assessing good moral character. And we’ve even seen interviews that are canceled and rescheduled. There has been no justification given to us why these interviews are being canceled and rescheduled. Sometimes clients are having to wait an extra two, three months to get an interview because their interview was canceled. I even had a client go to their naturalization interview. They were in the building, they had checked in, they were sitting in the waiting room. The officer came out and said, “Sorry, unfortunately, we have to cancel your interview today,” sent them home, and we waited another two and a half, three months to get a new appointment. There was no reason given other than “we just can’t conduct the interview today.” Now, the case was ultimately approved, but it sheds a light on what’s actually going on at those field offices. It’s a little chaotic. Hopefully that doesn’t continue, but it’s likely due to these policy changes and officers getting used to it. There are a lot of moving parts with all of this, and it naturally leads to issues like this. Longer wait times are common, especially when anything changes from a policy standpoint. So that’s naturalization.

Now let’s dive into increased vetting of visa applicants. Under the Trump administration, they have ordered the Department of State to increase vetting of visa applicants across the board. They’ve also asked the Department of State to do deeper social media screening for certain visa categories. From an increased vetting standpoint, this has had an impact on our clients, primarily the wait times. It’s taking a lot longer to get a visa appointment, regardless of where you’re located. Even in Canada, which historically hasn’t been too bad from a visa appointment standpoint, I’ve seen delays. I’ve seen delays in London. It’s just taking longer to get a visa interview regardless of where you are, because officers are having to do a deep dive into everyone that’s applying for a visa.

And there’s just increased vetting that’s causing these longer wait times. Now it’s also resulting in a higher rate of refusal, specifically for individuals with a criminal history. There aren’t specific numbers outlining an exact increase in the rate of refusals, but we’ve seen it in practice. We’ve had clients with DUIs that are now getting refused visas. We’ve had clients with very minor criminal histories that do not make them inadmissible, but they’re having issues getting a visa because of this criminal history. Now, it is a little inconsistent. It’s not a guarantee that your visa is going to get refused if you have a criminal history, but it does require a lot of planning, and the risk is increased for individuals applying for the visa.

From a social media standpoint — actually, before I get into that — there’s also a trend where I’ve seen this personally: I have big corporate clients that have blanket L petitions, which is essentially pre-approval of the company requirements under the L-1 category. This allows their employees to apply for an L-1 visa directly at a consulate or embassy abroad. It’s a more streamlined process to transfer executives, managers, and specialized knowledge employees from the office abroad to their office in the United States. And I’ve definitely seen an impact with our L-1 applicants. In the past, refusals were very rare. Granted, these are all good cases, approvable cases, but we’re seeing a much higher rate of denial with good L-1 blanket cases. These cases meet the requirements. They should be getting approved. The refusals seem to be pretty arbitrary.

Individuals aren’t even getting asked questions. They’re just being told, “Your case isn’t clearly approvable. We’re going to refuse your visa today.” And this is forcing us to file more cases with USCIS, a full-blown individual L-1 petition. It makes us prove the employer requirements, which technically are already pre-approved under the blanket. It’s more expensive. It’s a longer, drawn-out process. You’re subject to processing times. We’re still getting those cases approved, and then the same people that just got a denied visa at the consulate are taking a USCIS approval back to the consulate and getting approved for a visa. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it is an observation that we’ve seen over the past several months.

These applications are just getting more difficult. Officers have ultimate discretion, and it’s increased risk for individuals applying for visas at the moment.

Now back to social media vetting. That is definitely something we’ve seen as well — specifically for H-1B, F-1, J-1, M-1 applicants. You now have to make your accounts public, and officers are going in and looking at your social media. They’re looking for red flags like political speech or activism. They’re looking for perceived hostility towards the U.S. They’re looking for inconsistencies with your application. And they’re preserving screenshots and including these screenshots in your immigration file, and using it against you during a visa application.

Now, granted, this isn’t something that is brand new. Officers have been vetting social media for a long period of time, before this was ever in the news or made headlines. Even at the border, U.S. Customs will — say you’re applying for a TN application at the border — it’s extremely common for a Customs officer to Google the person, check their LinkedIn to see if it’s consistent with what’s being reported on a TN application. Because on a TN application, you’re going to outline the job being offered. You’re going to discuss your employment history and education history, and that’s all information that’s typically on a LinkedIn profile. And if there are inconsistencies, it’s always going to lead to an issue, because then an officer is not going to believe anything you say. This has been happening for a long period of time at the border. It’s been happening at the consulate. There’s just an increased focus on this, especially with those H, F, J, and M applicants.

Now, I still think all visa applicants are undergoing some level of social media screening. It’s probably just a little more in depth with those specific categories. But this is something that all visa applicants should expect is going to happen. The government is going to look at any public social media accounts if they have any concerns. And sometimes it’s just doing due diligence — doing that increased vetting that is currently being mandated by the Trump administration. Like I said, in practice, I haven’t seen social media specifically leading to denials. I’ve heard it’s happening. We haven’t seen it outright at our firm. We haven’t had anyone that’s been outright denied because of something on their social media.

I would say the biggest impact is those appointment delays. It’s just taking longer to get a visa appointment no matter where you are. There have been appointments canceled and rescheduled without warning. It’s just a little chaotic. People are waiting longer, but I haven’t seen a massive increase in refusals or denials for visa applicants because of social media.

All right, now on to expanded public charge determination. A little bit ago, the Department of State issued guidance that sort of expanded the health-related considerations under the public charge ground of inadmissibility. Historically, there’s always been a health/public charge ground of inadmissibility. There have always been communicable diseases and vaccine compliance requirements that have resulted in inadmissibility. But now the health-related grounds have been expanded to cover chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, even mental health disorders. And it’s resulting in increased scrutiny for visa applicants. I’ve even seen this happen at the border with U.S. Customs. And the rationale behind this relies on the longstanding public charge doctrine — whether or not the applicant is likely to become dependent on the U.S. government for resources. So they’re essentially saying, “Because you have this disease, it’s likely that you’re going to end up relying on the government for medical resources, and we’re not going to let you in the country for that reason.” That’s essentially the rationale in a nutshell. I haven’t seen a huge negative impact for our clients. We’ve literally had maybe one case. It could be an outlier, it might not be an outlier. But we did have a TN applicant, weird enough, not even applying for a visa — a TN applicant applying for a TN work permit at the border — and she was refused admission because of prior mental health issues. She was required to get a medical evaluation, come back to the border, and reapply. She was a nurse — a TN nurse working for a hospital. It was ultimately approved, but it delayed it. She missed work. The employer was shorthanded for several weeks. But we haven’t seen that happen since. I haven’t seen it firsthand with any visa applicants, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening — and it doesn’t mean that it can’t happen. It is a new policy.

This is something the government is going to be doing, and they are doing it. The prevalence of it, however, is to be determined.

Okay, now on to a bigger topic: the travel ban.

As I’m sure everyone knows, the Trump administration originally implemented a travel ban against twelve countries. That travel ban was expanded to nineteen countries starting the first of this year, and it has had a major impact on people’s ability to travel. It’s had a major impact on employers that are trying to apply for work permits for employees from these affected countries. And it’s had a negative impact on employment immigration in general, because this policy is being implemented and applied pretty liberally. We’re even seeing it with H-1B change of employer applications or extension applications, change of status to work-authorized status. We’re seeing USCIS issuing RFEs, and they’re using the individual’s nationality as a negative factor. They’re essentially saying that a grant of an extension of stay or a change of status is discretionary, and you have to show us that it’s not a threat to the United States — or that you’re not going to overstay — if we approve this extension or change of status. And they’re issuing RFEs asking people to submit evidence to overcome the negative factor, which is essentially their nationality. They’re asking for evidence to clearly establish your identity, show you don’t have any serious medical conditions or criminal history, show community service, history of employment — a bunch of positive factors to overcome the negative factor, which is your nationality. And it’s causing a huge rift. It’s impacting employment. Employers are relying on these people. There’s no certainty that they’re going to be able to work. And even individuals with dual citizenship — Canadian citizens that may also have citizenship in one of the other travel ban countries — they’re experiencing issues because the dual citizenship is not protecting them from these RFEs or from issues at the border with Customs. So in practice: cases can still be filed if people are in the United States. If you’re from a travel ban country and you’re outside the U.S. and you’re subject to a full ban — it’s a full ban. There are some countries where it’s a limited ban to certain categories like visitors, students, etc. But if you’re in the United States, the ban doesn’t apply and you can still file a change of status or extension — but it’s difficult because there’s a lot of uncertainty. These adjudications have been paused to an extent for in-depth reviews by the agency. So people don’t know if and when they’re going to get approved. We don’t know what the outcome of these RFEs is going to be — how negative these RFEs are going to be — for people that are already in the United States in TN or other work-authorized status. It’s just a difficult time for individuals from those travel ban countries. And the issue is: this is all discretionary.

It’s difficult when nationality in and of itself is being used as a negative discretionary factor. There’s a lot to be seen. This is evolving every day. This is something I’m sure we’ll be reporting on a lot more in the future as this unfolds. We’re at a point where there are still a lot of unknowns, but it is unfolding and we’ll definitely be providing more updates.

Now, one of the last topics I wanted to touch on is specific to E visa adjudications in Canada. First: in October, the U.S. Consulate in Toronto for initial applications unexpectedly blocked its calendar for the remainder of 2025. So picture this: it’s September/October. We’re working with clients. Generally speaking, there’s plenty of appointments available for October, November, December. We’re quoting clients these timelines. It’s a Monday in early October. We’re scheduling people for the end of October. Then we come in on Tuesday and all of a sudden there’s zero appointments available for the entire end of 2025 — nothing in October, November, December. The earliest available appointments are in January of 2026. The consulate gave no explanation or reasoning behind why all of these appointments suddenly became unavailable. So at that point, we had no choice — we had to start scheduling people into 2026. So we had clients that had submitted cases in August that are now waiting until 2026 to go to their visa interview in Toronto. On top of that, we’re also now seeing — and this is a really recent development — the consulate randomly canceling and rescheduling interviews that have been booked for months. We have clients that have been waiting since August that are now getting emails from the Department of State saying: unfortunately, we’re not doing visa interviews this day. We had to cancel and we’ve rescheduled your appointment for the end of February — or even March in some cases. So now clients that have been waiting since August are having to wait until March, even though they had an appointment in two days. There’s no explanation given from the consulate other than “we’re not conducting interviews this day.” Very limited information. There’s nothing we can do about it except reschedule appointments, which isn’t great because the wait times aren’t great at the moment. We’ve also seen a bit of chaos in terms of entry into the building. This is new. I don’t know if this is something we could expect to see in the future, but it’s direct feedback I’ve gotten from clients in the past week. Historically, when you go to a visa interview in Toronto — and even on the interview appointment notice — it says don’t get here more than 10 to 15 minutes early because we won’t let you inside the building. We let people in based on their appointment time. Well, I’ve gotten feedback this week where clients are saying: I got there, there was a huge line, it was absolute chaos. They were just letting people in first come, first serve. It didn’t matter when your appointment was. People were trying to cut in line. People were waiting for hours just to get in the building. It was a mess. Like I said, I don’t know if this is something we can expect. We’re advising people: if you have the ability, if you’re in the area, stop down or pop by maybe an hour before your appointment to see what it looks like — get an idea of how they’re doing it. If they are doing it 10 to 15 minutes by appointment, then you don’t have to get there an hour early. But if they are doing first come, first serve, the earlier you get there, the earlier you’re going to get in the building. So it’s a little chaotic. It’s a little unknown.

I’m sure we’ll be providing more info on that as we get more feedback from clients, but that’s a really recent development. And it’s completely unclear whether it’s a temporary or permanent operational shift. So stay tuned on that.

All right. So that just about does it for these updates.

Just to recap: I guess the biggest takeaway from everything we’ve seen under the Trump administration, from an operational and procedural standpoint in particular — everything’s slower. It takes longer to process cases. It takes longer to get a visa appointment. Scheduling, especially if you’re applying for visas, is inconsistent and unpredictable. Appointments are getting canceled. Appointments are getting rescheduled. There’s just no certainty whatsoever. And these are structural processing delays. They’re not just random occurrences. This is a result of everything that is going on — all of these policy changes.

Everything’s just slower, and it’s more discretionary. It’s far less forgiving than the immigration system has been in the past.

So when you’re planning travel to the United States, or you’re applying for a visa, or you’re submitting an application to USCIS — the planning and how a case is prepared needs to be done by the book, perfectly. Because the government is looking at these cases very closely, and you don’t want to be making mistakes on a visa application or a work permit application. Even if you check a box wrong or there’s a typo, it can have major implications on your case. It can cause major delays. The system is far less forgiving than it ever has been. And again: that is the nature of the U.S. immigration system because it is a discretionary system. It ebbs and flows, but it’s very unforgiving at the moment.

That’s just about everything I have.

I just want to thank everyone for joining us today. Thanks for stopping by and listening to our updates on Trump and U.S. immigration. If you have any other questions, or if you’re interested in learning more about this, or if you want to understand if you’re eligible for any type of immigration options, don’t hesitate to reach out. Feel free to call us, reach out on LinkedIn, schedule a consultation. We’re always happy to chat. We’re very active on social media as well, so stay tuned. Check out our blog and our website.

Check us out on LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok. We’re very active. We’re always posting updates about the latest and greatest in U.S. immigration.

All right. Thanks, everyone.