The Department of Homeland Security is directing federal immigration agents to arrest refugees who don’t have green cards, a major policy shift targeting people who entered the country legally.
The agency outlined the move to detain refugees in a Wednesday memo from the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“This detain-and-inspect requirement ensures that refugees are re-vetted after one year, aligns post-admission vetting with that applied to other applicants for admission, and promotes public safety,” the memo obtained by NOTUS states. The memo was first reported by Law Dork.
After a year of living in the U.S., refugees have to file with USCIS for a green card. However, failure to do so previously did not warrant detention under 2010 ICE guidance. The Trump administration rescinded that guidance on Dec. 18.
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“The one-year inspection is not discretionary; It is a required step to determine whether the refugee may remain in the United States as [a lawful permanent resident], should have status terminated, or should be placed into removal proceedings,” the memo from ICE acting Director Todd Lyons and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow states.
The policy change places some refugees in a bureaucratic bind. Refugees from countries in President Donald Trump’s travel ban list, such as the Somalian population the federal government is seeking to target in Minnesota, are unable to receive approval for their permanent residency. In December, USCIS announced a pause to all applications, including for green cards, for people from countries deemed high-risk.
“Detaining refugees for failing to complete a process the government itself has delayed is indefensible,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the refugee resettlement group Global Refuge.
Department of Justice officials submitted the memo on Wednesday to a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against “Operation PARRIS,” the Trump administration’s effort to target 5,600 refugees in Minnesota to reexamine their legal status. U.S. District Judge John Tunheim temporarily blocked on Jan. 28 the detention of the Minnesota refugees and ordered the immediate release of those who had been detained.
Tunheim, a Bill Clinton appointee, is set to hear arguments Thursday afternoon for extending the block on the detention of refugees in Minnesota for the duration of the litigation.
The International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, denounced the memo as part of the Trump administration’s actions against refugees.
“This memo is part of a broad and concerted effort to strip refugees of their legal status and render them deportable,” said Laurie Ball Cooper, the group’s vice president of U.S. legal programs, in a statement. “This government will clearly stop at nothing to terrorize refugee communities, and really all immigrants, while trampling over our constitutional rights.”
A USCIS spokesperson said the agency was implementing the law as written by Congress.
“This is not novel or discretionary; it is a clear requirement in law,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The alternative would be to allow fugitive aliens to run rampant through our country with zero oversight. We refuse to let that happen.”
Tunheim labeled that argument as “nonsensical” in his January opinion and wrote that it would lead to many refugees celebrating their one-year anniversary in this country in jail.
Lyons and Edlow cited an internal and unpublished USCIS review of refugees admitted between 2021 and 2024 from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela concluding that 10% of the 31,000 refugees had evidence of public safety concerns and over 42% had not been sufficiently vetted.
Trump has also slashed the annual cap on refugee admissions to 7,500 and given preference to white South Africans who claim they face racial persecution.
This story has been updated to include a statement from USCIS.
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