Due to the actions of President Trump, 2025 has been a year of ICE raids, incarceration of immigrants and mass deportations.
What is less well known are the efforts of the Executive Branch of the Government to curtail legal immigration to the United States without the necessity of having Congress pass any laws to do so.
Below are a number of examples of President Trump’s efforts to reduce legal immigration to the US:
- Pause on Diversity Lottery Green Cards
- Denaturalization of US Citizens
- Travel Ban Imposed on Nationals of 39 Countries
- Pending Asylum Applications Placed on Hold
- Imposition of $100,000 Filing Fee for H-1B Visas
- End of Constitutional Right of Birthright Citizenship?
- New Test and Good Moral Character Rule for Naturalization
- Refugee Admissions Dramatically Decreased
Below are some information and links regarding these priorities of the current administration:
Pause on Diversity Lottery Green Cards
This program, established in 1990, grants 55,000 green cards annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The majority of these persons are from Africa and Europe.
This program was paused in December 2025 when it was revealed that the suspect in the Brown University shooting had immigrated to the US in 2017 under the diversity lottery.
It seems totally irrational to suspend a program which benefits 55,000 persons annually based on the actions of a single individual.
For more information, please see https://www.shusterman.com/president-trump-on-immigration/
Denaturalization of US Citizens
In December 2025, the USCIS asked its field offices to “supply Office of Immigration Litigation with 100-200 denaturalization cases per month.”
This is a huge increase from the number of denaturalization cases which stood at approximately 11 per year from 1990 to 2007.
When I served as an INS Naturalization Attorney in the 1970s, most denaturalization cases involved Nazi war criminals.
For more information, please see https://www.shusterman.com/denaturalization/
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Travel Ban Imposed on Nationals of 39 Countries
In June 2025, President Trump signed a proclamation banning travel to the US from 12 countries and partially restricting travel from 7 other countries.
In November, USCIS put in place a blanket pause on the adjudication of all immigration benefits for nationals subject to the June travel ban. This suspension applies to all benefits including visa petitions, green card applications and even citizenship oath ceremonies.
Then, in December, the travel ban was extended to include nationals of 20 additional countries starting on January 1, 2026.
For more information, please see https://www.shusterman.com/president-trump-on-immigration/
Pending Asylum Applications Placed on Hold
On December 2, 2025, USCIS issued a policy memorandum directing that all pending affirmative asylum applications pending with the agency be placed on hold. The hold is indefinite and USCIS has not provided a timeline for when decisions will resume.
It is estimated that almost 1.5 million affirmative asylum applications are currently pending with the USCIS.
For more information, please see https://www.shusterman.com/asylum-us/
Imposition of $100,000 Filing Fee for H-1B Visas
On September 19, 2025, President Trump issued a Proclamation in which employers will need to pay $100,000 for certain employees who they will be sponsoring for H-1B visas.
We created a web page entitled “Who is Subject to the $100,000 H-1B Fee?” at https://www.shusterman.com/trumps-h1b-visas-ban/
On October 20, USCIS updated their H-1B Specialty Occupations page to clarify who is subject to the $100,000 fee, and how and when it must be paid.
There are a number of pending lawsuits challenging the new fee.
End of Constitutional Right to Birthright Citizenship?
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…”
The US Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) held that the 14th Amendment grants US citizenship to all persons born in the US without regard to race or nationality.
However, on January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14160 which seeks to redefine birthright citizenship – excluding many children born in the US unless at least one parent is a US citizen or a lawful permanent resident.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to rule on this matter in 2026.
For more information, please see https://www.shusterman.com/president-trump-on-immigration/
New Test and Good Moral Character Rule for Naturalization
The 2025 Naturalization Civics Test was recently started for persons who filed their naturalization applications after October 20, 2025.
It features 128 potential questions, up from 100, and requires 12 correct answers out of 20 rather than 6 out of 10. It focuses more on American history and government than did the previous test and will be much more difficult to pass.
A link to the 128 questions is available online at https://www.shusterman.com/naturalization/#1
On August 15, 2025, USCIS issued a memorandum which created a new approach to evaluating whether a person applying for naturalization is able to meet the “good moral character” criteria.
The memo states that “Going forward, USCIS officers must account for an alien’s positive attributes and not simply the absence of misconduct. In evaluating whether or not an alien has met the requirement of establishing GMC the Officer must take a holistic approach in evaluating whether or not an alien seeking naturalization has affirmatively established that he or she has met their burden of establishing that they are worthy of assuming the rights and responsibilities of United States Citizenship.”
We link to this memo from https://www.shusterman.com/naturalization/
Refugee Admissions Dramatically Decreased
The fiscal year 2026 cap of 7,500 is the lowest in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) history, down from 125,000 under the previous administration.
The limited slots are mainly allocated to Afrikaners from South Africa, with other groups from major crises areas like Sudan, the Congo and the Ukraine largely excluded.
