The Department of Homeland Security has just expanded the ability of federal immigration authorities to detain legal refugees who have not yet obtained permanent residency. The arguments behind this change are national security and the need to ensure that refugees undergo additional screening, according to a DHS memo obtained by CNN.
Immigration agents can arrest and detain refugees who have not adjusted their status to lawful permanent resident one year after they were admitted to the United States, according to the memo, filed by Justice Department lawyers as part of a federal court case.
“When a refugee is admitted to the United States, the admission is conditional and is subject to mandatory review after one year,” states the memo, which adds that detained refugees may remain in custody “for the duration of the inspection and examination process.”
The memo, issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, revokes previous government policy regarding refugees who have been in the country for a year.
The department’s previous policy “created a population of conditional refugees who had not been fully re-evaluated, with associated risks to public and national security,” the document states, and the new “detain and inspect requirement ensures that refugees are re-evaluated after one year.”
Refugee resettlement groups immediately condemned the new policy.
“This memo was made in secret, without any coordination with refugee-serving organizations,” said Beth Oppenheim, executive director of the refugee agency HIAS. “This policy is a transparent attempt to detain and potentially deport thousands of people who are in this country legally, people whom the US government itself welcomed after years of extremely rigorous assessments,” he added.
The government’s court filing that included the DHS memo is part of a federal case in Minnesota in which a judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from taking action against about 5,600 legal refugees in the state awaiting permanent residency.
The International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the plaintiffs in the Minnesota federal case, says it is challenging the new refugee policy.
“This memorandum is part of a broad, coordinated effort to strip refugees of their legal status and make them deportable,” said Laurie Ball Cooper, vice president of U.S. Legal Programs at IRAP. “This administration will clearly stop at nothing to terrorize refugee communities, and indeed all immigrants, while trampling on our constitutional rights.”
A USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) spokesperson told CNN that “the media is sensationalizing a long-established immigration law” and that the agency is “implementing the law as written by Congress,” citing a statute in the U.S. Code.
“Aliens admitted as refugees MUST undergo full inspection after one year in the United States. The statute expressly states that they shall ‘return or be returned to… custody,'” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “This is neither new nor discretionary; it is a clear requirement in law. The alternative would be to allow fugitive aliens to roam our country unchecked. We refuse to allow that to happen.”
A CNN requested comment from DHS and ICE.
President Donald Trump during his second term — with the limited exception of white South Africans — amid his broader offensive against illegal immigration. Last year, the Trump administration set the , a fraction of what has historically been allowed by the US. As of 2024, more than 100,000 refugees have been admitted.
In November, the government decided to re-interview some refugees admitted under President Joe Biden. That same month, the death of two National Guard soldiers attacked by an Afghan citizen in Washington prompted the government to reexamine permanent residences granted to people from Afghanistan and 18 other countries “of concern.”
