The Brief

The Trump administration is transforming the agency known for processing green cards and citizenship requests into one of its strongest anti-immigration policing arms.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, is one of the three branches of the Homeland Security Department that deals with migration.

Traditionally, its more than 20,000 employees have focused on the various ways people can lawfully immigrate and stay in the U.S. — be that applying for asylum, a green card, citizenship, work visa, or another legal pathway.

Since January, administration officials have taken an axe to that traditional mission by encouraging early retirements, shuttering collective bargaining agreements and drastically cutting back on programs that facilitate legal migration. New job postings lean into the rhetoric of hiring "homeland defenders" and tackling fraud.

During his Senate confirmation, USCIS director Joseph Edlow proclaimed that "at its core, USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency."

The efforts come as President Trump seeks to curb illegal immigration but also reduce legal ways to get to the U.S. and stay here, especially for certain nationalities.

It's rocking the agency from the inside, crushing morale and prompting resignations, according to current and former agency employees.

With the recent changes, at least 1,300 people took the "Fork in the Road" resignation offer for federal employees, while others have left on their own. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection employees were not allowed to take the offer.)

And it's catching immigrants and their families, lawyers and advocates off guard.

"'Am I going to get arrested?' … That's a question, regardless of their past," said Eric Welsh, an immigration attorney in California who helps his clients apply for various USCIS programs.

"There really is a lot more fear and there is a lot more concern about, should we do it at all?," Welsh said, about people applying for legal status.

Rapid changes after deadly shooting

The changes have been rapid. In recent weeks, the White House said it would re-review all approved refugee claims under the Biden administration.

After an Afghan national was charged for shooting two National Guard members in late November, the administration also halted processing green card and citizenship applications from nationals of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, and ordered retroactive reviews of already-approved applications.

"I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover," Trump wrote on social media after the shooting. "Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation."

USCIS stopped processing many immigration applications entirely, including for asylum.

"USCIS' role in the nation's immigration system has never been more critical," Edlow, its director, said in a statement last week announcing a new vetting center that will conduct interviews and re-review already approved immigration applications.

"Under President Trump, we are building more protective measures that ensure fraud, deception, and threats do not breach the integrity of our immigration system."

Recent policies come after a swath of other changes this year. Policy memos have emphasized that the priority for refugees is admitting those who can easily assimilate into the country, with the target demographic being white Afrikaners from South Africa.

The White House also capped refugee admissions for this fiscal year at 7,500, the lowest since the modern refugee program started in the 1980s.

The agency has unveiled a longer, tougher citizenship test. It has also moved forward with a rule that would allow officers to consider an immigrant's legal use of public benefits, such as food stamps and healthcare, as a reason to deny status.

Reports of arrests and detention following routine USCIS interviews and appointments have increased fear among immigrants.

"They're reaching deeper into the weeds of immigration policy, and they may be more successful in slowing legal immigration, which at least some members of the Trump administration have stated is their goal," said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. "That's a pretty different stance towards immigration than we've seen over recent decades."

In Trump's first term, the changes did not significantly curb legal migration, but that may be changing.

"Some people, if they have a green card, might just wait to naturalize and see if they can wait for a new administration," Gelatt said.

USCIS leans into enforcement and policing tactics

The new administration has prioritized the agency's law enforcement work.

For example, USCIS has promoted a new role: "homeland defenders."

It is unclear exactly what these positions are responsible for. USCIS said they will be "interviewing aliens, reviewing applications, and identifying criminal or ineligible aliens."

The posting also specifies this position is expected to provide direct support to CBP and ICE, two agencies leading the effort to arrest, detain and deport immigrants.

The roles also seem to cater to those with backgrounds in traditional law enforcement, contrary to a background in immigration law and administrative government work that is more typical for USCIS.

USCIS said it received some 35,000 applications for the role of "homeland defender" and has made "hundreds" of job offers, including to former law enforcement officials and veterans, according to a November USCIS press release.

"USCIS is cutting bureaucratic red tape to hire fiercely dedicated, America-first patriots to serve on the frontlines and hold the line against terrorists, criminal aliens, and bad actors intent on infiltrating our nation," the release stated.

It also created USCIS special agents, who have law enforcement authority to carry firearms, and investigate, arrest and prosecute immigration cases. In the past, much of this would be the work of ICE or CBP, according to the release announcing the new workforce.

"Certainly the immigration enforcement side of things that are happening has sent a message that anybody who isn't a citizen in the United States could be arrested and put into ICE detention and potentially deported," Gelatt said. "That has a real chilling effect on people's willingness to interact with the government generally, and with USCIS as well."

USCIS workers defend past enforcement

The changes are having an impact inside the agency, as workers feel out of the loop about the direction and pace of changes.

Michael Knowles was an asylum officer for 34 years and currently serves as the executive vice president of the union that represents 15,000 USCIS employees. He says morale is some of the lowest he's seen in his tenure, thanks to the termination of the union contract, a haphazard back-to-office mandate that has employees working in makeshift desks, and a lack of communication from agency leadership.

"There are questions about what will be our mission, what will be our focus? And to that extent, we are alarmed by rhetoric," Knowles said. He said the agency has always enforced the nation's immigration laws when it processes applications.

One USCIS refugee officer who recently departed the agency after nearly a decade said the speed of the changes "overwhelmed" employees, and recent changes were the last straw. The person spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity out of concern of retaliation from the agency they hope to return to.

USCIS staffers say they have always worked hard to ensure people don't get benefits they do not qualify for, and also look for people who may be breaking the law.

So employees were upset by the administration's implication that they hadn't been doing their jobs properly for the last five years, after the White House announced all refugees admitted under in the Biden era must be reinterviewed.

"It's going to cause a lot of confusion. It's going to cause a lot of chaos. It's going to cost a lot of money," the employee said. "It seems impossible."

USCIS said it has paused the approvals while it "works to ensure that all aliens from these countries are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible," the agency said in an emailed statement.

Not "an adversarial office"

Beyond policy and rhetoric changes, there's been subtler signs of transformation.

Signs inside USCIS offices urge people to leave the country, mirroring the tone of a detention center, rather than that of an immigration office, according to Welsh and other lawyers.

"USCIS is not designed to be an adversarial office," he said. "They're not the enforcers. They're not looking to reduce."

Now, he said, his clients are concerned with needing to have proof of a good moral character by providing church attendance or charitable donation history, for example.

"It's now certainly not the kind of friendly atmosphere that we used to experience with the agency," Welsh said.

Lawyers fear all the changes would further curb legal migration of the kind the U.S. had previously welcomed.

"We have borders and we have benefits. So for people who deserve them or people who have earned them for various reasons, we provide them," Welsh said. "If we just go into a pure enforcement mindset, then there's no happy place to be."

The agency did not respond to a question about whether immigrants will be deterred from pursuing legal pathways to permanent status.

"The safety of the American people always come [sic] first," the agency said in its statement.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Malibu is pushing back the next phase of its speed camera program along a deadly stretch of PCH to November. The 60-day warning period was originally set to start in November, where drivers going 11 or more miles per hour over the speed limit will get a warning instead of a fine.

The delay, the city says, is needed so adjustments can be made to camera installations.

Yesterday, a Nobu worker was killed about a block from the upscale Japanese restaurant on PCH. CBS LA reports that a juvenile had crashed into the employee's parked vehicle.

When fines start

Malibu officials announced the delay of the program's warning phase last week after a testing period in September recorded around 100,000 speeding violations in less than 10 days.

Enforcement at the 10 cameras along a 21-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway will start sometime after the end of the warning period. According to the city, violations will result in fines, but not driver’s license points or insurance penalties.

Why Malibu added speed cameras

Since 2010, traffic collisions on that part of PCH have killed more than 60 people, the city says. In 2023 alone, there were 220 reported crashes there, with 93 injuries and seven deaths — including four Pepperdine University students who were standing along PCH when a driver hit and killed them. The driver, who is charged with murder, is scheduled to stand trial beginning Dec. 1.

Following that incident, Malibu City Council declared a local emergency over dangerous conditions posed by reckless and speeding drivers.

In 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 1297 into law to allow Malibu to install the speed cameras

Looking to say adios to your lawn by sheet mulching or to add a protective layer to your flower beds? Good news, you don’t need to pay for mulch or woodchips. You can instead get them for free in Southern California. Here are a few different ways, depending on your flexibility - and muscle power.

Free mulch piles

Municipalities across the region offer free mulch.

City of L.A.: You can grab mulch anytime from one of its free mulch piles.

O.C.: You can schedule a pickup from a greenery/landfill

Other cities: see below (or check out your own city government’s page).

• Riverside County Department of Waste Resources 
• City of Rialto Free Compost & Mulch 
• Burrtec's Coachella Valley Composting Facility. It is located at 87011 Landfill Rd in Coachella. 
• City of Rancho Mirage Free Compost and Mulch Program 
• City of Ventura Free Compost and Mulch Program

Free mulch delivery

If you don’t want to go pick up the free mulch yourself, consider ChipDrop. It’s a service that connects arborists with gardeners to deliver free wood chips.

Beware: you may get a lot of mulch. Like, a lot.

(

Jenn Baughman

/

LAist

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Connect with an arborist:

If you want to try to control the amount of mulch you get - or the date of delivery - you may want to consider talking to an individual arborist. They often end up with excess woodchips they need to get rid of, or take to the dump. If you call they might be happy to offload some for your garden.

Opponents of Proposition 40 have a message for voters: Don’t be fooled. The billionaire tax is a “Trojan horse” for new taxes on all Californians, ads proclaim. But is that true?

Tucked into the initiative is language granting the Legislature authority to amend the tax by a two-thirds vote “if the statute is consistent with and furthers the purposes of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.” Opponents argue lawmakers and a future governor could, with the stroke of a pen, expand the wealth tax to people with far less than $1 billion.

In a high-tax state, that argument could hold a lot of sway with voters.

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West put Prop. 40 on the ballot; the initiative would levy a one-time, 5% tax on billionaire’s assets. The union rejects the premise of the ad. It says the tax is limited to billionaires and any legislative amendment would have to hew closely to that purpose. Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW, said opponents’ ads are pure scare tactics.

“The billionaire tax is a tax on billionaires. Period. If you’re not a billionaire, you don’t pay the tax,” Regan said in a statement to CalMatters.

Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, the group that paid for the ad, said the message was meant to highlight the policy implications of a wealth tax and the power Prop. 40 gives lawmakers.

“Californians deserve to understand those issues and what they could mean for taxpayers and the state’s economy,” Lapsley said in a statement.

A separate, billionaire-backed group opposed to Prop. 40 has also said the initiative “gives politicians the power to expand the tax to anyone.”

The truth lies somewhere in between.

California courts have given lawmakers real authority to amend laws created by ballot initiatives if the original text of the initiative permits it. However, that power is not unlimited and the measure includes language restricting future legislative changes, said Michael Colantuono, an attorney with expertise in state election law.

Opponents’ ads also don’t mention that Prop. 40 writes the tax into the state Constitution, not just state law, so expanding it would likely require another trip to the ballot.

Legislative authority

Legal experts agree that if Prop. 40 passes, lawmakers would be able to make certain amendments without taking it back to voters.

The state Constitution allows the Legislature to amend a ballot initiative without another vote if the initiative permits it. That’s a relatively common clause in ballot measures, and Prop. 40 includes it.

Megan Jones, a tax attorney at Holland & Knight, said proponents’ claims that the tax could never be changed are disingenuous.

“If it’s going to further the purposes, then they could,” Jones said.

For example, voters passed the Political Reform Act, which governs campaign finance and lobbying rules, in 1974 and lawmakers have amended it almost continually since.

Similarly, lawmakers have amended the Mental Health Services Act, a voter-approved 1% income tax on millionaires, 10 times since its passage in 2004. None of those amendments adjusted the tax rate. Most recently, lawmakers voted to substantially alter how the state spends mental health money and raise additional bond funds. Those changes went back to voters in 2024 as Proposition 1.

But there isn’t always a clear line for when voters need to approve changes, experts say.

“It is common for the Legislature to make amendments,” Colantuono said. “It is (also) common for there to be disputes about those amendments.”

‘Furthers the purposes of’

“Ultimately, it ends up in court,” said Chris Parker, a principal tax attorney at the firm Baker Tilly.

The California Supreme Court ruled in a 1995 case that the Legislature may amend voter-approved laws if the changes can be interpreted as furthering voters’ original goals “by any reasonable construction” — giving lawmakers broad latitude.

In 2021, the state Supreme Court held that the Legislature appropriately amended Proposition 57, a criminal justice reform measure, by barring the transferring of minors under 16 to adult court. Justices cited the 1995 case, noting that “a strong presumption of constitutionality supports the Legislature’s acts.”

Still, the language of the proposition matters.

A few years earlier, in 2019, the Third District Court of Appeal held that a legislative attempt to allow public funding of political campaigns “directly conflicts with a primary purpose” of the Political Reform Act. Lawmakers responded by passing a new bill asking voters to weigh in directly — it appears on this year’s ballot as Proposition 4.

Judges look at two things, Coluantuono said: what reasonable voters thought they were approving, and whether later legislative changes helped that goal, or got in the way.

Certain provisions of Prop. 40 would make it difficult for lawmakers to expand the tax beyond billionaires. The 1995 case established that courts may weigh the language of a ballot measure, arguments printed in the voter guide, and historical context when deciding whether change is consistent with voter intent.

Prop. 40’s purpose and intent section says the measure is meant to support healthcare and education “by raising revenue from a one-time tax on billionaire wealth” — referencing billionaire wealth three times. The voter guide arguments similarly target “approximately 200 California billionaires.”

“They could probably adjust the structure of the tax in marginal ways, but what they couldn’t do is make it a more than a one-time tax, and they probably couldn’t lower the threshold on wealth,” Coluantuono said.

Opponents contend lawmakers could interpret the purpose of the act far more broadly, and a court would agree. They point to the first listed purpose of the initiative that says the tax is meant to “protect access to high quality, equitable health care, and to support funding for kindergarten through grade fourteen public education and food assistance programs.” Opponents also say the proposal gives the Legislature the authority to change all parts of the initiative, including the constitutional provisions.

“Prop 40’s findings and statement of purpose and intent were carefully crafted to ensure that

extending the tax to non-billionaires would be consistent with the measure,” said Kurt Oneto, a lawyer for the No on 40 campaign, in a statement.

Experts said the question would likely come down to how a court read the act’s purposes.

A separate concern: how do you prove wealth? 

Should Prop. 40 pass, it would create an entirely new tax structure in California — one that assigns a value to very wealthy people’s investments, public and private businesses, as well as personal property such as art or car collections.

Valuing something like a tech startup that hasn’t produced a product or gone public could prove especially difficult, Parker said.

“The excise tax that’s being proposed here is on potential,” he said. “The question then is, if we open the door to taxing potential, when does that stop?”

Lawmakers have periodically tried to pass wealth taxes, but the bills quickly stalled. This marks the first time voters will directly decide on one, making Prop. 40 a crucial test of how much appetite Californians have for his kind of tax structure. Jones said the bigger worry isn’t the tax itself, but other taxes that could follow.

“It’s a slippery slope,” she said.

Coluantuono said it would still be politically risky for lawmakers to try to implement a wealth tax on everyday Californians, but history shows temporary taxes have more than once become permanent.

“When we get a revenue stream in the government and we start spending it on services that people value… there’s tremendous political pressure to prevent the sunset,” he said.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, appeared at a South L.A. forum Saturday, where they agreed on some aspects of the city’s approach to reducing homelessness, but offered different ideas on addressing housing costs.

The two appeared separately in conversations with Brenda Verano of CALO News at A Place Called Home, a youth services community organization.

Bass went first, saying she grew up just 20 blocks south of the venue.

“South L.A. has been a big part of my life and what I have done,” said Bass, who in 1991 helped start Community Coalition, which fights for racial and economic justice in that part of the city.

Each candidate was asked how they would build trust in City Hall among Black and Latino residents in South L.A.

“Black and brown poor folks the most have been central in my administration and will continue to be so,” Bass said. “But to me, representation is not just about faces in a room. It's about collaborating on everything you're doing.”

Raman said the establishment “has taken the people of Los Angeles for granted.”

“I’m running for mayor because I don’t want to ignore any part of this city,” she said. “I want to make sure we are people who know these communities not just in the mayor's office but across the many commissions, across the many departments that are designed to oversee these neighborhoods.”

How the candidates would work with LAPD 

Both vowed to expand pilot programs where unarmed social workers respond to certain non-emergency 911 calls instead of the police department.

“Law enforcement should not be dealing with homelessness and substance abuse and mental health,” Bass said. “Those are public health issues.”

But Bass said it's doubtful the police department’s budget will be cut before the 2028 Olympics. The mayor in the past has expressed support for growing the number of police officers.

Raman has said the department is about the right size. She expressed concern about the police department’s cooperation with ICE during recent federal immigration raids.

Raman also criticized the department for its crowd control tactics during protests around ICE facilities. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against some protestors.

“This mayor did not speak out against those actions by LAPD, appointed a chief who has not met this moment, who said he would not enforce laws put in by the state to protect us,” Raman said.

Chief Jim McDonnell has previously said his department would not enforce California's state law banning federal immigration and law enforcement agents from wearing masks on duty. A federal appeals court in February blocked enforcement of the law.

Bass said if the judicial ban is lifted, she would order McDonnell to enforce the state law. The mayor also defended the department’s use of police officers for crowd control during ICE operations.

“If there is a crowd around an arrest, then LAPD is involved because we don’t want to have the federal government doing that,” she said.

Both say city should exit troubled homelessness agency

On the city’s response to homelessness, Bass called the current system “completely disfunctional” and called for a new system under the control of the city.

Currently, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority oversees the city’s delivery of homeless services. Numerous audits have found poor accounting of taxpayer money at the agency — which spent nearly $830 million in public funds last fiscal year.

The county has already pulled its funding from the agency in favor of standing up a new county-run Department of Homeless Services and Housing.

Bass said unhoused people are not getting enough care once they leave the streets.

“It is insufficient. They are not taken care of in terms of their health, education, etc. A new system would enable us to do that,” Bass said.

Raman has said she also supports leaving LAHSA and investing in a new homelessness bureau. She noted that street homelessness fell in her council district while numbers across the city went up, according to this year’s homeless count.

“In the past few years, this mayor has refused to audit our homelessness response,” Raman said. “I am very committed to doing that, and I'll request that audit on day one.”

Sharp divides on housing development, renter protections

On housing, Raman criticized the mayor’s opposition to building more densely in residential neighborhoods near transit centers. She said the result has been more building in the city’s poorer council districts, including the South L.A. district that hosted Saturday’s forum.

“Wealthier neighborhoods, less diverse neighborhoods, whiter neighborhoods have actually pushed back on affordable housing, on greater density,” Raman said.

More of the city, said Raman, should bear the burden of greater density.

“We need to build more housing in Los Angeles, but we need to build it across every single neighborhood,” Raman added.

Bass has said density doesn’t belong in some neighborhoods. She opposed a state law, SB 79, that will force cities to allow apartment buildings up to nine stories tall near rail transit stations.

Bass said her administration has fast-tracked new income-restricted housing. But she argued that certain development restrictions are necessary to prevent gentrification.

“We need housing, but we cannot displace Black and Brown people,” Bass said. “If you have housing that is just built anywhere and everywhere, they're coming for us.”

Raman also criticized Bass’ move to temporarily lift restrictions on short-term rentals in preparation for an influx of visitors during the 2028 Olympics.

“I want to make sure that this mayor’s push for deregulating short-term rental during this time, in ways that are harmful to renters, don’t go through,” Raman said. She said tenants could be displaced as landlords turn long-term rentals into short-term accommodations.

Airbnb and business groups back the proposal, saying it will fill a visitor lodging gap for the Olympics and that it would generate significant municipal revenue. Airbnb has put more than $4 million toward backing Bass and three other city candidates, according to the latest campaign finance reports.