On November 12, 2025, a federal court ruling in the case Moody et al. v. Mayorkas et al. granted relief to new investors in the EB-5 program by halting the increased application fees introduced by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on April 1, 2024.
What fees were increased?
Here’s a quick breakdown of the fee changes that were challenged:
The legal immigration landscape was shaken once again late Friday evening when the President issued a new proclamation barring new H-1B workers from entering the United States—unless their employers pay a $100,000 fee for each sponsored employee.
The proclamation took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Sunday, September 21, and will remain in effect until a court order halts its implementation.
Emergency Litigation
A surge of emergency lawsuits is expected to be filed by impacted H-1B workers and their sponsoring employers, seeking a nationwide injunction to stop the implementation of the executive order. A court could issue an injunction as early as Monday. We will provide litigation updates as they develop in the coming days.
Highlights of the Executive Order
In the hours after the proclamation was issued, chaos unfolded as H-1B visa holders, advised by their employers and legal counsel, abandoned flights and canceled international travel due to uncertainty about how the proclamation would be enforced at the U.S. border.
Adding to the uncertainty was the absence of clear guidance from immigration authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), about how the proclamation is to be enforced against current H-1B visa holders and approved beneficiaries.
President Trump’s first 100 days in office have been marred by controversial actions targeting both legal and illegal immigration.
In its latest move, the Trump administration is going even further by targeting “sanctuary” cities which are state and local jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement officials. “Sanctuary” cities have been known to enact policies that prohibit the detention of individuals solely based on their immigration status and restrict the sharing of information about immigrants with federal authorities.
To force them into compliance, the Trump administration has begun filing lawsuits against sanctuary cities seeking to penalize them for their disobedience.
The first of these lawsuits targets Colorado and Denver for impeding federal immigration authorities from carrying out deportations. Denver is one of many states with state laws that prevent state and local officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. For instance, a Denver state law prevents the use of the city’s resources to assist with immigration enforcement, while a separate executive order establishes Denver as a “sanctuary city,” welcoming undocumented immigrants.
If Trump has it his way, the lawsuit would undo Colorado’s sanctuary state laws by declaring them unconstitutional and prohibiting their enforcement.
Interestingly, in responding to the lawsuit, the governor of Colorado Jared Polis denied Colorado’s status as a sanctuary state and said that Colorado regularly cooperates with federal law enforcement authorities.
In President Trump’s latest legal battles, a federal judge from the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts has dealt a blow to the administration’s plans to fast-track the deportations of thousands of undocumented migrants with final orders of removal.
Today, federal judge Brian Murphy issued a nationwide temporary restraining order immediately blocking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting migrants from the United States to countries with which they have no existing relationship, without first providing them written notice and a meaningful opportunity to claim relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) for immigrants fearing persecution.
This decision was made in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of migrants challenging ICE policies that expedite the removal of undocumented immigrants released from detention to third countries.
The judge’s court order specifically prohibits the U.S. government from:
“Removing any individual subject to a final order of removal from the United States to a third country, i.e., a country other than the country designated for removal in immigration proceedings, UNLESS and UNTIL [the government] provide[s] that individual, and their respective immigration counsel, if any, with written notice of the third country to where they may be removed, and UNTIL Defendants provide a meaningful opportunity for that individual to submit an application for CAT protection to the immigration court, and if any such application is filed, UNTIL that individual receives a final agency decision on any such application.”
Last month, San Diego’s Board of Supervisors passed a resolution ending the use of county resources aiding federal immigration enforcement actions.
The measure was made ahead of President Trump’s inauguration and puts an end to the cooperation between law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Previously, local law enforcement agencies cooperated with ICE officials by facilitating the transfer of detainees to ICE custody and notifying ICE of their release from custody to aid in their removal from the United States.
In response to San Diego’s actions, the America First Legal Foundation (founded by Trump advisor Stephen Miller) issued a letter to 249 elected officials including the Chair of San Diego’s Board of Supervisors, Nora Vargas. In the letter, the organization warned Vargas that she could be subject to criminal prosecution and civil liability for what the organization considered to be “obstruction” of federal immigration law.
New details have emerged relating to a pending lawsuit before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas known as Texas et. al. vs. DHS et. al., Case No. 6:24-cv-00306 (E.D. Tex.), which is currently blocking the approval of applications filed under the Biden administration’s parole in place program.
Litigation Updates
On August 26th eleven individual intervening parties who stood to benefit from the parole in place program filed a motion to intervene in the Texas lawsuit.
Thereafter, on September 3rd the Texas district court judge denied the motion to intervene. As a result, the intervening parties filed an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit claiming the lower court’s denial of the motion to intervene was unjustified.
On September 11th the Fifth Circuit Court ordered the lower court to freeze all proceedings until they have had the opportunity to hear the intervenors appeal.
A hearing date of October 10th has been set and the court has said that no further action can be taken in the lower court until that date.
The appellate court’s order states as follows, “Meaning no criticism of the district court’s recognition of the need for prompt resolution, this panel must have an opportunity to consider the merits briefs, scheduled to be received by September 16, and to hear argument on the appeal of the denial of intervention. Accordingly, we administratively STAY proceedings in the district court pending a decision on the merits or other order of this court. The stay issued by the district court will remain in effect pending further order of this court.”
What does this mean for parole in place applications?
In the meantime, USCIS can continue accepting and processing parole in place applications under the Keeping Families Together program, but it cannot approve cases until further notice.
The recent Supreme Court decisions handed down in Loper Bright v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Dep’t of Commerce, have overturned a longstanding rule known as the “Chevron” doctrine, which eliminates the need for federal courts to defer to federal agency decisions and regulations moving forward. This move essentially strips power away from federal agency interpretations of the law and gives it back to the courts.
This is positive news in the world of immigration, considering that a federal agency’s interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) will no longer automatically prevail when litigating cases in court and filing immigration challenges to visa denials.
This will benefit many immigrants and businesses who for many years have been blocked by federal agencies from obtaining employment-based visas and green cards based on ambiguous agency interpretations of their cases.
For instance, in removal cases, those seeking review of decisions previously made by immigration judges’ or the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) will now have a clean slate, since courts no longer have to rely on an agency’s standpoint and can now interpret unclear laws with a new set of eyes.
These rulings could also pave the way for new litigation to be filed to defend challenges to previous visa denials. Where interpretations of the law once made by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) were automatically upheld in court, they will now be challenged forcefully.
U.S. employers seeking a favorable interpretation of a statute granting H-1B or L visa classification to a noncitizen worker may also have greater opportunities to argue their cases in court and win on behalf of their clients.
A recent appellate court decision handed down on June 25th has reversed a lower court’s decision which previously allowed the State Department to adjudicate and approve diversity visa cases from the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.
The case Goodluck v. Biden, No. 21-5263 (D.C. Cir. June 25, 2024) dealt with the COVID-era presidential proclamation 10014 signed by former President Trump in April 2020, which suspended the entry to the United States of certain immigrant visa applicants following the Coronavirus outbreak.
The suspension had a devastating impact on the Diversity Immigrant Visa program because the State Department refused to issue diversity visas while the presidential proclamation remained in effect. The Department took the position that because the presidential proclamation rendered certain aliens inadmissible to the U.S., it also made them ineligible for visas.
Later, the State Department suspended all routine visa services including the processing of applications for diversity visas due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders.
In response, a class of diversity visa applicants selected in the DV 2020 and 2021 diversity visa lotteries sued the government, arguing that the Department’s policies prevented them from receiving their immigrant visas before the mandated fiscal-year-end deadlines.
As the case moved through litigation, the district courts agreed with the DV selectees ordering the State Department to prioritize processing and issue diversity visas past the end of the fiscal year deadlines.
In subsequent court orders, DV selectees were granted equitable relief which ordered the State Department to reserve diversity visas for DV 2020 and 2021 selectees for processing and issuance after the end of the fiscal year.
On Tuesday June 4, 2024, President Joe Biden’s rumored executive action on immigration was unveiled by the White House.
Among its sweeping provisions, effective Wednesday June 5, 2024, the order will limit the number of migrants who can claim asylum at ports of entry along the southern U.S. border, while there are high levels of illegal crossings at the southern border.
Specifically, migrants seeking asylum will be turned away at the border when the seven-day average of daily border crossings exceeds 2,500 daily encounters between ports of entry. Since the number of encounters currently exceeds this figure, the order will go into effect immediately.
This means that starting June 5th U.S. border officials will stop conducting credible fear interviews for asylum claims and will instead quickly expel migrants seeking asylum at the border.
Migrants who are expelled under the order will receive a minimum five-year bar on reentry to the United States and potentially be subject to criminal prosecution.
The government will only accept asylum claims at the border if 14 days have passed, and the number of daily encounters has declined to 1,500 migrants or less at U.S. ports of entry.
Apart from unaccompanied minors, the order applies to all noncitizens, encountered along the southern border, irrespective of their country of origin.
What does the order do?
This executive order will temporarily suspend the entry of noncitizens who cross the border without prior authorization, or a legal basis to do so, including those claiming asylum at the border during periods of high border crossings.
Can migrants still claim asylum through scheduled appointments on the Customs and Border Protection’s One App?
Yes. The executive order does not prohibit migrants from using the CBP One app to make appointments at the border where they are able to claim asylum. The executive order only prohibits “unscheduled” asylum claims at the border.
In this blog post, we share with you the latest regarding the controversial immigration law from the state of Texas known as SB-4.
In a stunning turn of events, on Tuesday March 19th the Supreme Court of the United States cleared the way for the state of Texas to enforce its controversial immigration law SB4, which would allow state officials to arrest and detain those suspected of entering the country illegally.
The Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s request to intervene and keep Texas’s strict immigration enforcement law on hold pending litigation.
The legal challenges however did not stop there. Later that day, a federal appeals court put the controversial law back on hold, just hours after the Supreme Court would have allowed Texas to begin enforcing the new law.
The order came down from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which a three-judge panel voted 2-1 to vacate a previous ruling that had put the law into effect.
The future of the law still hangs in the balance as the 5th Circuit prepares to hear arguments over the controversial law to decide once and for all whether the law is unconstitutional.
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