Federal
Administration’s Push Against H1-B Visas Continues
President Trump signed an executive order and proclamation on September 18 extending the administration’s crackdown on the H-1B visa program by another year, renewing the $100,000 entry fee for new H-1B petitions filed from outside the United States through September 21, 2027. The fee, first imposed in September 2025 and framed by the White House as a tool to curb abuses that displace American workers, remains legally contested. A federal judge has already ruled it an unlawful tax, and the policy continues to operate under a court order while litigation proceeds. The fee does not apply to renewals of existing H-1B visas or to workers already in the U.S. on other visa types, such as international students transitioning to H-1B status, who make up a large share of new recipients each year.
The accompanying executive order directs the Departments of Homeland Security, Labor, and State to coordinate more closely and give heightened scrutiny to H-1B petitions from employers with a history of recent or planned layoffs affecting similarly situated American workers. While companies are not automatically barred from hiring H-1B workers after layoffs, the order signals that job-cut histories will now weigh more heavily in adjudications, and it requires the Labor Department to review previously submitted labor condition applications within 30 days. According to the administration’s own proclamation, the $100,000 fee has functioned as an effective deterrent to new H-1B hiring from abroad since it took effect,
The moves come alongside a separate DHS proposal to eliminate the 60-day grace period that allows H-1B and other nonimmigrant workers to remain in the country after losing a job, which would make some workers immediately removable if their employment ends before their authorized stay expires. Taken together, the administration’s actions mark a continued effort to tighten the specialty-occupation visa program even as legal challenges to its centerpiece fee remain unresolved.
Immigrants With Final Deportation Orders Vanish from ICE’s Public Detainee Locator
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed thousands of detainees with final removal orders from its public online locator system on September 15, an unannounced change that has made it significantly harder for lawyers and family members to determine where someone is being held. What first appeared to be a system glitch was confirmed to the Associated Press by three anonymous current and former ICE officials, and several lawyers separately told the AP that their clients had disappeared from the database. ICE has not officially confirmed or denied the change, saying only that immigrants with final removal orders are being “prioritized for deportation” and that all detainees retain access to phones. Attorneys note that calling from detention often means long lines and a required fee, making the online locator the faster way to find someone.
Nearly 16,000 people booked into ICE detention in July 2026, more than a third of the roughly 65,000 detainees held that month, were subject to final removal orders, meaning the change potentially affects a substantial share of the current detained population. The exclusion does not apply to detainees held at facilities in Adelanto, California, or temporary holding sites in Minneapolis, New York City, and suburban Chicago, where court orders separately require ICE to list detainees in the locator immediately upon arrival.
Disappearing from the system does not necessarily mean a person has been deported; they may still be in custody or have been transferred. The locator system, created in 2010, has long allowed relatives, attorneys, and the public to search for a detainee by name or alien registration number to confirm custody status and facility location. Immigration lawyers say the change could hasten deportations by making it far more difficult to mount last-minute legal challenges, calling it a “huge impediment to effective representation.” Attorneys typically cite a detainee’s locator entry when filing habeas corpus petitions to establish that a court has jurisdiction over the case, and because ICE can transfer detainees, sometimes multiple times, to facilities thousands of miles from their homes.
White House Proposes New Refugee Cap, Focused on Afrikaners
The Trump administration notified Congress on September 22 that it plans to set the fiscal year (FY) 2027 refugee admissions ceiling at 17,500 people, with the State Department’s formal notice stating that admissions will “primarily be Afrikaners from South Africa”. The proposed cap remains at the same level the administration ultimately reached this year, when it initially set the ceiling at 7,500, almost entirely for Afrikaners, before raising it to 17,500. The figure remains a fraction of the 125,000 ceiling set under the Biden administration and marks the second consecutive year of historically low admissions under the program. The State Department’s report to Congress argues that Afrikaners will “fully assimilate into the United States in a manner that preserves taxpayer resources for U.S. citizens,” adding that the administration does not expect other countries to resettle this group. Resettlement under the proposed ceiling is expected to cost approximately $500 million.
The plan effectively closes off the vast majority of the country’s refugee capacity to people fleeing war, persecution, or humanitarian crises elsewhere in the world. FY 2027 would mark the second straight year in which refugees fleeing religious persecution have no dedicated pathway into the program. Refugee resettlement organizations and humanitarian groups have criticized the administration’s continued focus on a single ethnic group, arguing it represents a fundamental departure from the program’s traditional role of providing refuge based on individualized claims of persecution rather than nationality or race. The cap is subject to consultation with Congress before the 2027 fiscal year begins on October 1.
Legal
Federal Court Strikes Down Fast-Track Third-Country Deportation Policy
A federal appeals court on September 18 struck down the Trump administration’s policy of rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than their own. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston largely upheld a lower court’s February decision, finding the policy unlawful because it allowed officials to send migrants with final removal orders to a “third country” with as little as six hours’ notice, based solely on diplomatic assurances from that country that it would not persecute or torture the deportee. The court held that deportees must receive advance notice of their specific destination and “a meaningful opportunity to contest” being sent there, effective immediately, rejecting the government’s argument that blanket assurances alone satisfied due process.
Officials scrambled the day after the decision to pull people off flights bound for third countries including Costa Rica, Honduras, and the Central African Republic, and the government concluded it could no longer rely on diplomatic assurances alone to carry out rapid removals while the ruling stands. The Solicitor General filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on September 24, arguing the program is “an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens.” The ruling represents a significant check on a program that has already sent more than 25,000 people to countries where they hold no citizenship. The practice has drawn scrutiny after detainees sent to Equatorial Guinea were beaten by police at a hotel that has become a de facto holding site for U.S. deportees, and a separate investigation found the administration has funneled at least $410 million into securing third-country deportation arrangements with roughly 35 nations, mostly in Africa and Latin America. The underlying legal fight over the policy’s future is now positioned for likely resolution by the Supreme Court.
State and Local
ICE Shooting of Venezuelan Man in Austin Raises Questions Over Missing Body Camera Footage
A U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officer shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan national, in the back on September 20 while he was working as a DoorDash driver in North Austin, leaving a bullet lodged near his spine. He was later returned to a detention center in Pearsall, Texas, without having the bullet surgically removed. The officer who fired was a recent ICE recruit hired last year during the agency’s hiring surge. The Department of Homeland Security said the officer involved had been issued a body camera but was not wearing it at the time of the shooting. A second officer on scene was wearing one, but its footage did not capture the moment of the shooting itself. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had said that all ICE officers would be equipped with body cameras by the end of September, and agency policy calls for cameras to be activated during arrests, stops, and searches.
The shooting came the same weekend that ICE agents in Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, mistakenly detained a U.S. citizen they believed resembled someone they were seeking. The man was left injured on the ground after resisting the agents’ attempt to fingerprint him; he was hospitalized and released once agents confirmed his citizenship. Both incidents have intensified scrutiny of ICE’s use of force and its inconsistent body-camera practices as the agency’s enforcement activity has expanded nationwide.
BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED
S. 5527
Birth Tourism Elimination Act
Sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) (0 cosponsors)
09/24/2026 Introduced by Sen. Scott
09/24/2026 Read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
S. 5490
To designate Ukraine under section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide certain nationals of Ukraine with continued eligibility for temporary protected status, and for other purposes
Sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) (3 cosponsors)
09/23/2026 Introduced by Sen. Blumenthal
09/23/2026 Read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
S. 5485
Americans First Immigration Act
Sponsored by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) (0 cosponsors)
09/23/2026 Introduced by Sen. Tuberville
09/23/2026 Read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR
The U.S. Senate is scheduled to be in session from Monday, September 28, through Friday, October 2. The U.S. House will be in recess until November 9.
SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES
The Forum is constantly publishing new policy-focused resources that engage with some of the most topical issues around immigration today. Here are a few that are particularly relevant this week:
Reclassifying ‘Applicants for Admission’: How the Second Trump Administration is Reshaping Mandatory Detention
Explainer: Recent Administration Policies Will Undermine the H-1B Visa Program
Bill Analysis: Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026
Fact Sheet: Temporary Protected Status
*As of publication (9/25/26 at 1:30 PM EST)
This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact Nicci Mattey, Senior Policy & Advocacy Associate at the Forum, with questions, comments, and suggestions for additional items to be included. Nicci can be reached at nmattey@forumtogether.org. Thank you.