Overview
The U.S. government, through agencies like U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), tightened nearly every pathway for legal immigration this year, according to a report from the International Legal and Business Services Group (ILBSG). Forbes reported that the administration’s combined policies will cut the U.S. immigration rate roughly in half by 2028. Employers worry about a labor shortage in industries like construction and healthcare that lean heavily on foreign-born workers.
Leadership and Projected Impact
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is leading the immigration agenda, according to Forbes. A January 2026 analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) projected that the administration’s policies will reduce legal immigration by 33% to 50%, or by 1.5 million to 2.4 million legal immigrants, by the end of Donald Trump’s four-year term. An earlier NFAP report factored in labor contraction due to other immigration policies, including on deportation and ending Temporary Protected Status, and concluded that the policies would lead to a potential labor loss of approximately 19 million worker years by 2028 and 102 million worker years by 2035. The policies would reduce the projected cumulative goods and services produced in America by $1.9 trillion, or $5,612 per person, from 2025 to 2028, and by $12.1 trillion, or $34,369 per person, from 2025 to 2035. The analysis also found the policies would reduce economic growth by approximately one-third and increase the federal debt.
Diversity Visa Freeze
The Diversity Visa lottery is one example of the restrictions. Officials have refused to process the roughly 55,000 Diversity Visas available for fiscal year 2026. Individuals selected for the lottery who do not receive a visa or adjust status by Sept. 30, 2026 will permanently lose their eligibility. The freeze dates back to Dec. 2025, when a DV1 lottery winner killed two students and injured nine others at Brown University in a shooting; the shooter also reportedly killed a professor at MIT several days later. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem justified suspending the Diversity Visa category by citing the shooter, who had gained permanent residence through the lottery eight years earlier. The Department of Homeland Security placed the program on pause days after the attack and hasn’t reopened it since.
The State Department stated that Diversity Visa selectees who do not receive visas or status by September 30, 2026 will derive no further benefit from their DV-2026 registration.
Refugee Admissions Restricted
The administration stopped all refugees from entering the United States except white people from South Africa, according to reports. It set last fall’s refugee cap at a historic low of 7,500 for fiscal year 2026, then raised the cap to 17,500 this spring, setting aside the additional slots for white South Africans, or Afrikaners, exclusively under an executive order citing persecution on the basis of race. Refugees from that country now make up virtually all of the refugees admitted so far this year. NFAP estimates these measures reduced projected legal immigration by about 470,000 over four years.
Proclamations and Freezes on Multiple Countries
A presidential proclamation issued in December 2025 put a freeze on applications from nationals of 39 countries, including Nigeria, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Venezuela. On January 14, 2026, the administration announced the State Department will pause immigrant visa processing from 75 countries whose migrants take welfare at unacceptable rates. The overlap between the 75-country freeze list and the 39-country proclamation totals 93 countries. According to NFAP analysis, 481,460 individuals from those 93 countries received permanent residence in FY 2023, including 206,550 as spouses, children or parents in the Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens category.
Public Charge Rule Changes
In July 2026, Trump officials published a final rule on “public charge.” DHS rescinded the 2022 public charge ground of inadmissibility in favor of granting government officials greater freedom to deny individuals permanent residence. USCIS published new public charge guidance on Aug. 18, 2026, effective Sept. 18, largely undoing the July 20 rule’s changes and returning to the broader 2019 standard. The new rule considers only cash benefits and long-term institutionalization, ignoring an individual’s health, age, financial resources and other factors. The State Department also issues public charge determinations for certain consular visa applicants. A federal judge ruled in July 2026 that the State Department’s public charge policy ran afoul of the Immigration and Nationality Act, but the decision is currently only applicable to the plaintiff.
Immigration attorneys Cyrus Mehta and Damira Zhanatova analyzed that the rule would provide even more discretion to officers to deny adjustment of status applications. A NFAP study by economist Mark Regets found that real earnings increased by 76% over 12 years for immigrants from countries where family sponsorship is the primary method of immigrating to the United States.
Additional Restrictions and Enforcement
In a new Board of Immigration Appeals decision, the administration stated that individuals will no longer be allowed to leave the country on advance parole and reenter the United States with lawful admission. ICE is arresting people with pending applications, including individuals sponsored for permanent residence by their U.S. spouse, in an effort to meet arrest quotas. Miriam Jordan of the New York Times reported on a Russian-born woman with a green card application pending after applying for asylum and marrying an American citizen, who was arrested by ICE off a domestic flight and placed in detention. Doug Rand, a former DHS official, said in a statement: “Trump 2.0 is actively choosing to persecute a U.S. citizen and his future-citizen spouse, while diverting law enforcement resources away from actual lawbreakers.”
A proposed rule may price many H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market by changing prevailing wage levels. A rule placed on the regulatory agenda to change labor certification could make it more difficult for employment-based immigrants to obtain permanent residence by expanding employer obligations for PERM.
Legal Challenges
Several lawsuits challenge the administration’s actions. In June 2026, a federal judge vacated the USCIS policy of holding and declining to adjudicate applications from many countries and categories, including asylum, in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS. In July 2026, a federal district court denied the administration’s motion to stay that ruling.
Red Eagle Law v. Edlow in the Northern District of California challenges the USCIS policy of holding and refusing to process applications for individuals from numerous countries. Medani et al. v Trump, also in the Northern District of California, challenges the Diversity Visa category suspension, with a hearing set for August 27 before Judge Edward J. Davila. Syed et al. v Trump, in the California Central District, challenges the 75-country suspension, with a hearing set for September 21 before Judge John A. Kronstadt.
In Syed et al. v Trump, the government failed to respond to Red Eagle Law’s motions for preliminary injunction and to certify the class by the August 10 deadline. Judge Kronstadt wrote that on or before August 19, 2026, Defendants shall file any oppositions or notice of non-opposition to the Motions, and if no oppositions are filed by that deadline, the Motions will be deemed unopposed.
Curtis Morrison of Red Eagle Law said in an interview that the mass deportation agenda focuses on eliminating legal immigration.