By Ted Hesson and Devika Madhusudhanan Nair
WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (Reuters) – The Trump administration has given immigration officers broader powers to detain legal refugees awaiting a green card to ensure they are “re-vetted,” an apparent expansion of the president’s wide-ranging crackdown on legal and illegal immigration, according to a government memo.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a memo dated February 18 and submitted in a federal court filing, said refugees must return to government custody for “inspection and examination” a year after their admission into the United States.
“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 department said in the memo.
Under U.S. law , refugees must apply for lawful permanent resident status one year after their arrival in the country. The new memo authorizes immigration authorities to detain individuals for the duration of the re-inspection process.
The new policy is a shift from the earlier 2010 memorandum, which stated that failure to obtain lawful permanent resident status was not a “basis” for removal from the country and not a “proper basis” for detention.
The DHS did not respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular business hours.
The decision has prompted criticism from refugee advocacy groups.
AfghanEvac’s president Shawn VanDiver called the directive “a reckless reversal of long-standing policy” and said it “breaks faith with people the United States lawfully admitted and promised protection.”
HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, said the “move will cause grave harm to thousands of people who were welcomed to the United States after fleeing violence and persecution.”
Under President Donald Trump, the number of people in ICE detention reached about 68,000 this month, up about 75% from when he took office last year.
Trump’s hardline immigration agenda was a potent campaign issue that helped him win the 2024 election.
A U.S. judge in January temporarily blocked a recently announced Trump administration policy targeting the roughly 5,600 lawful refugees in Minnesota who are awaiting green cards.
In a written ruling, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis said federal agents likely violated multiple federal statutes by arresting some of these refugees to subject them to additional vetting.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington, Devika Nair, Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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