January 21, 2025
Day One Immigration Executive Orders Affecting Employment Based Immigration
On his first day in office (January 20, 2025), President Trump signed several executive orders. A number of the orders deal with immigration issues, however not all of them will affect those in the U.S. lawfully or seeking to come to the U.S. with a work visa or green card. Here are the top three orders that may impact the employment-based immigrant community:
In this order, the president calls for “enhanced vetting and screening across agencies.” The order directs the heads of the State Department, Homeland Security, Justice Department and National Intelligence to prepare a report within 60 days. The report will identify any countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries…” In other words, a travel ban has not yet been imposed, but there may be one forthcoming for citizens of any identified countries seeking a visa to enter the U.S.
The order also calls for the “proper assimilation” of lawful immigrants to the U.S. and asks for recommendations of “any additional measures to be taken that promote a unified American identity and attachment to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States.” This could mean additional requirements for immigrants seeking to obtain permanent residence or to naturalize to U.S. citizenship. Under the previous Trump administration, the U.S. civics test was revised to increase the number of potential questions from 100 to 128 and to require that applicants answered 12 out of 20 correctly to pass, up from 6 out of 10. It is possible that we will see a return to those standards.
2.“PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP”
This order aims to redefine so called birthright citizenship and it instructs federal agencies not to recognize U.S. citizenship for those born to a mother “unlawfully present” or whose presence is “lawful but temporary,” if the child’s father was not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident at the time of the birth. If enacted, the order would prevent issuance of U.S. passports to the children of mothers in the U.S. unlawfully as well as those with a tourist, student, or work visa.
The concept of birthright citizenship is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdictions thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The U.S. Supreme Court has previously upheld this concept as applying to nearly everyone born in the U.S., aside from the “children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes.” United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Civil rights groups have already come together to file a lawsuit that seeks to halt the order. If it remains in effect, this order will apply only to those born in the U.S. starting 30 days after the order was signed.
The hiring freeze order simply calls for a halt to the “hiring of Federal civilian employees, to be applied throughout the executive branch.” Although this order is not directly related to immigration, it will likely have an impact if civilian positions in the Department of Labor, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of State remain unstaffed. Unfilled positions will likely lead to increased backlogs in adjudications within those agencies.
Conclusion
With these and other orders, the new Trump administration clearly aims to shift immigration policy and enforcement throughout all federal agencies involved. We will be watchful in the days and weeks to come and will provide updates as they are available.