USCIS End-of-Year Review Highlights Rigorous Immigration Enforcement Actions

(WASHINGTON, DC) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Monday released an End-of-Year Review of 2025 that frames the agency as a front-line enforcement partner inside the Department of Homeland Security, pointing to stepped-up vetting, a sharp rise in referrals to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and new rules aimed at fraud, work authorization, and naturalization. The review, dated 12/22/2025, credits Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow with what the agency called a tougher, “common-sense” reset that puts national interest first, and it repeatedly describes the year’s work as an “America First” approach.

Leadership Statements and Framing

Edlow, in a statement included in the release, cast the changes as a break from the prior administration.

“With Secretary Noem in charge of homeland security, USCIS has taken an ‘America First’ approach, restoring order, security, integrity, and accountability to America’s immigration system, ensuring that it serves the nation’s interests and protects and prioritizes Americans over foreign nationals,” he said.
He added, “The Biden administration spent four years dismantling, exploiting, and undermining America’s immigration system, flooding our country with criminal aliens. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, our border is secure, integrity has been restored to our immigration system, and the safety of our homeland comes first.”

Immediate Reaction to the Nov. 26 Attack

The End-of-Year Review highlights the agency’s immediate and broad response after a violent incident on Nov. 26, in which an Afghan national “murdered one National Guard member and severely wounded another.”

• Within hours, Secretary Noem directed USCIS to put asylum processing on hold “for aliens from every country.”
• She ordered a “full-scale reexamination of every Green Card for aliens from every presidentially designated high-risk country.”
• USCIS said it placed a hold on immigration applications and petitions for all Afghan nationals and for people from countries of concern.
• Officers were required to weigh “negative country-specific factors” for applicants from 19 high-risk countries when assessing threat potential.

New Vetting Center and Investigative Posture

USCIS described a structural shift to speed and intensify security checks.

• The agency announced creation of a new vetting center on Dec. 5, a hub focused on identifying “terrorists, criminal aliens, and other threats to public safety.”
• The center will use advanced technologies and collaborate with law enforcement and intelligence partners.
• This language signals USCIS moving from a primarily benefits-granting role toward a more investigative posture.

Edlow emphasized the intent behind the shift:

“Protecting Americans is at the center of everything we do at USCIS. We are committed to safeguarding public safety and national security by making sure every alien undergoes the most rigorous vetting and screening processes possible.”

Hiring Push: “Homeland Defenders” and Special Agents

USCIS reported a recruitment effort to staff its new enforcement focus.

• The agency launched recruitment for “Homeland Defenders” to work on fraud and threat-focused tasks.
• Since the campaign began on Sept. 30, USCIS said it has received more than 50,000 applications, calling it the highest in agency history.
• The first hires started reporting in early December 2025.
• USCIS plans to hire a new team of special agents as it exercises “new law enforcement authorities” delegated by Noem.

Enforcement Actions and Notices to Appear

USCIS described increased use of enforcement tools during routine case processing.

• Under updated policy “confirming USCIS’ role as an immigration enforcement agency,” officers are again empowered to issue Notices to Appear (NTA), the charging documents that initiate removal proceedings.
• USCIS reported officers have issued approximately 196,600 Notices to Appear since Jan. 20, calling the number historic.

The practical consequence: a denied case, a suspected misstatement, or a status problem can more readily become the start of deportation proceedings—even for people who initially sought a benefit.

Key Statistics (as reported by USCIS)

Focus on Fraud and FDNS Activity

Fraud was presented as a central theme of the review, with Edlow declaring “war on immigration fraud.”

• USCIS said there were more fraud referrals in the past year than during the entire Biden administration.
• Since Jan. 20, officers made over 29,000 fraud referrals to the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS).
• FDNS completed investigations on more than 19,300 fraud cases and “identified fraud in 65% of them.”
• The agency reported more than 6,500 site visits and over 19,500 social media checks, indicating online activity may be reviewed as part of case scrutiny.

Operation Twin Shield

USCIS highlighted a large-scale enforcement operation as notable for an agency known mainly for interviews and paperwork.

• Operation Twin Shield was launched in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area targeting marriage fraud, misuse of H-1B work visas, student visas, and other issues.
• USCIS said it focused on more than 1,000 cases, attempted over 2,000 site visits, and completed nearly 1,500 in-person interviews.
• The agency reported evidence of fraud, noncompliance, or public safety/national security concerns in hundreds of cases.
• Outcomes included benefit denials, “numerous” Notices to Appear, and nearly a dozen arrests by ICE, including identification of an “alien with ties to terrorism” who was later detained.

Policy and Regulatory Changes

The review outlines rule changes that alter how longstanding rules are applied.

• USCIS said it strengthened guidance to limit defenses for a false claim to U.S. citizenship, directing officers to look only at age or mental capacity when assessing intent to falsely claim citizenship for benefits.
• It expanded screening for marriages and family relationships, warning applicants must prove relationships are genuine.
• For employers and workers, USCIS changed regulations so certain categories renewing work permits will no longer receive an automatic extension.
• The agency reduced the maximum validity for some employment authorization documents from 5 years to 18 months, a change the agency says forces more frequent vetting.

Humanitarian Pathway Rollbacks

USCIS described rollbacks of several humanitarian programs, arguing they had been stretched beyond congressional intent.

• The agency said it is stopping “broad abuse” of humanitarian parole authority and terminating family reunification and the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan parole programs (CHNV).
• On Temporary Protected Status (TPS), USCIS said TPS “was always meant to be temporary,” and that Secretary Noem ended TPS for Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela.
• USCIS encouraged people whose parole or TPS was terminated to use the CBP Home app to report their departure, underscoring that program endings can force difficult choices for families who established lives while protected.

Naturalization: Test Changes and Neighborhood Investigations

Naturalization was treated as an enforcement and integrity issue.

• On Sept. 17, USCIS announced a revised naturalization test:
  • Question bank expanded from 100 to 128.
  • Number of questions asked increased from 10 to 20.
  • Passing score raised from 6 to 12 correct responses.
  • Questions were rewritten to be a more “meaningful assessment” of U.S. history and government knowledge.
• USCIS said it restored “neighborhood investigations” in November 2025 to check residency, moral character, loyalty to the Constitution, and commitment to the nation.
• The agency said false claims of U.S. citizenship during naturalization will result in denial.

System-Level Changes: SAVE, Fees, and Visa Prioritization

USCIS reported system-level work tied to elections, benefits, and fees.

• The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) was upgraded:
  • States can verify citizenship using the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
  • States can run bulk queries and use SAVE at no charge.
  • SAVE processed over 48 million voter verification queries since the changes.
  • 24 states signed memorandums of agreement for voter verification with USCIS.
• USCIS said federal oversight bodies ran nearly 206 million SAVE queries during calendar year 2025.
• Official program details are available at USCIS SAVE.
• USCIS stated it has been implementing new fees since July 2025 under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted by Congress as H.R. 1, collecting “millions of dollars” to pay down the national debt and fund enforcement.
• DHS proposed a rule to prioritize H-1B visas for higher-skilled and higher-paid workers and published a final rule to streamline agricultural work visas.

Impacts, Practical Consequences, and Analysis

For immigrants, lawyers, and employers, the review signals that USCIS is portraying itself less as a neutral clerk of benefits and more as an enforcement arm.

• The agency’s own figures—14,400 referrals to ICE, 2,400 arrests at field offices, and 196,600 Notices to Appear since Jan. 20—are presented as evidence of the shift.
• Fraud metrics and site visits suggest deeper checks will become more common.
• The agency did not provide individual case examples in the released material, but the consequences are foreseeable:
  • Families facing tighter scrutiny of marriage evidence.
  • Workers losing automatic work permit extensions.
  • Long-term residents re-evaluating every form answer before signing.

According to analysis by VisaVerge.com, USCIS’s language and metrics in the End-of-Year Review signal a compliance-first posture likely to shape interview questions, evidence requests, and denials beyond 2025.

Closing Statement from Edlow

Edlow concluded the agency’s accounting by keeping the emphasis on enforcement and national security.

“USCIS’ end-of-year review demonstrates enforcement actions and policy changes that crack down on immigration fraud, strengthen vetting, and protect American communities. These efforts underscore President Trump and Secretary Noem’s commitment to restoring integrity and putting national security and the interests of Americans first,” he said.