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

Updated November 13, 2026 at 20:38 PM ET

The nationwide ground stop that paralyzed the U.S. aviation system on Friday has ended, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The rare stop, which lasted about four hours, grounded thousands of flights at all U.S. airports in one of the biggest disruptions of the nation's air travel system since the September 11th attacks. 

In a Friday night news conference, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that air traffic control facilities had experienced "intermittent" outages of their radar and communications systems beginning earlier in the afternoon. Duffy blamed outdated technology for the failures. 

"We have old switches, old routers. We use 1980s little copper lines. It's an old system that went down and went down everywhere. It got overloaded," he said.

But when pressed by reporters on exactly why those systems would become overwhelmed on an otherwise normal travel day, Duffy did not have a ready answer. 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin joined Duffy in the White House briefing room and said there was no evidence the issue was due to an attack.

"We have seen zero evidence this is a cyber attack," he said.

A flight board showing delayed flights is pictured at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Friday.

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As of 9 p.m. ET, more than 8,000 flights had been delayed Friday and 7,000 had been canceled in the U.S., according to FlightAware, a flight tracking site. The turmoil comes on the heels of nearly 7,000 flight delays on Thursday.

The FAA said the issue affected Air Route Traffic Control Centers — the regional air traffic control centers across the country that handle high-altitude traffic.

FAA leaders did not brief the media at the White House press conference, and did not provide any further detail on the communication outages that led to the ground stop.

This was only the second nationwide ground stop since September 11, 2001. The U.S. last issued a ground stop of this scale in 2023, when all U.S. airports were shut down due to an outage in the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which alerts pilots and airports of real-time hazards.

That outage prompted fears of a cyberattack, but the FAA later determined the issue was caused when contract workers inadvertently deleted critical files.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) released a statement late Friday evening calling for a "prompt, penetrating investigation" into the causes of Friday's ground stop.

"A widespread communication outage of this scale is highly alarming — a clear danger to national security, as well as safe, convenient travel close to the holidays. The Department of Transportation owes Americans credible, accurate action and factual disclosure," the statement read.

The FAA has recently begun rolling out an AI-enhanced software tool known as the SMART system as part of its ambitious overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system. But Air Space Intelligence, the company that makes the tool, quickly dismissed speculation that its product could be connected to the flight disruptions.

"The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC," the company said on social media.

Passengers stranded

The nationwide ground stop caused chaos in airports and headaches for travelers — many of whom are already too familiar with flight delays and cancellations during the holiday season.

At the Friday night press conference, Duffy said flights would resume but would take time to clear.

At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Regina Harling said she waited hours — long past when her flight was supposed to depart — before she learned of the nationwide grounding by checking the news on her phone. 

"There's still a sign right in front of me that says we're boarding in 16 minutes," she said Friday afternoon. 

An airline worker shows people how to apply for a refund at LaGuardia airport on Friday.

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Harling needed to travel last minute to San Diego for a family emergency. Stuck at the airport, she said she was thinking about how soon she could make it to her family, but she's not optimistic.

"I was just thinking to myself that it always feels like it's getting harder to travel than it used to be," she said.

At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Giliann Karon was on board a plane when the ground stop was ordered. Karon said she had already experienced a flight delay the day before due to bad weather in New York City, where she is heading.

"It's just kind of like, 'Oh, of course this is happening,'" she said.

Deepa Shivaram contributed to this report.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The nonprofits that run the Los Angeles region's federally funded homeless shelters, outreach teams and housing services will soon be overseen by a different government agency, under a deal a federal judge says he plans to approve next week.

If approved, the shift will mark the biggest change in the control of federal homeless dollars in L.A. in decades.

The proposed settlement would shift federal grants and duties from the troubled L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) to the county government in stages, starting next month. LAHSA’s management of federal dollars for homeless services would end in June. The deal between LAHSA and the Trump administration keeps the region's request for roughly $240 million in new annual federal funding on track and adds tighter checks on how that money is spent.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said at a Friday hearing he would likely sign it Monday, ending LAHSA's lawsuit over the Trump administration’s June suspension of the agency.

“This has been an absolute past dereliction of duty by the federal government” and local governments, Carter said, referring to what he called decades of failure to properly oversee homelessness dollars.

“I choose now to turn this back to the proper governing bodies,” Carter said. "But please, this can never happen again."

Citing past audits and reports, Carter said “HUD’s been on notice since 2007” of LAHSA’s oversight failures and “abandoned” its own oversight role.

“I termed it a partnership in failure,” he added. “Local government turned an absolute blind eye to the distribution of these funds and transparency and accountability for these funds.”

“And what is so sad and disappointing is, these funds were meant to serve the absolute most vulnerable in our society,” the judge added.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, left, shown in West L.A. on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024.

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LAHSA has faced major problems in recent years. Last year, an LAist investigation found the signature of LAHSA’s then-CEO, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, finalized a $2.1 million contract with the nonprofit where her husband was working in senior leadership, despite previously telling LAist she was “completely recused.”

LAist also found the agency kept awarding millions in contract renewals to another nonprofit even after LAHSA’s own compliance team labeled it “high-risk” for, among other things, billing for services while reporting no enrolled participants. That group’s leader, Alex Soofer, recently pleaded guilty to diverting $2 million. Another nonprofit operator contracted with LAHSA, Michael Young, was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors with misappropriating millions of tax dollars, including allegedly siphoning $1 million into a high-end nightclub.

Additionally, a 2024 L.A. County audit found LAHSA had mismanaged hundreds of millions in contracts for homeless services, often paying service providers late and failing to track whether services were provided.

Under the deal, Carter would receive quarterly reports on progress and could intervene if one of the parties asks him to resolve a dispute.

When control would shift

The deal, on its own, does not change which nonprofits provide shelter, outreach and housing. It instead changes which government agency pays them and ensures they’re serving people as required.

Here’s what the timeline will be if Carter follows through on approving the deal:

• Within two weeks of this year's federal awards: Most new grants awarded to LAHSA will instead be managed by the county, not LAHSA.
• Starting Dec. 1: Grants for programs that begin on or after that date move to the county before they start.
• January 2027: LAHSA, which has overseen the homeless counts since 2005, runs the annual homeless count one last time. The county runs it after that.
• By March 1, 2027: The county is approved to take over as the agency that applies for federal homelessness money for the whole region going forward, instead of LAHSA.
• By April 1, 2027: The county takes over management from LAHSA of many federal grants for programs already underway that continue past June 2027.
• By June 30, 2027: LAHSA finishes administering federal grants that end by this date.
• By Dec. 31, 2027: The county takes over the region’s federally required database, known as HMIS, that tracks which homeless services each person receives. The county also takes over another system, known as CES, that matches people with taxpayer-funded housing. With that, LAHSA's last remaining federal roles end.
• January 2028: The county conducts the annual homeless count, taking over that role from LAHSA.

What the deal would mean for services

The federal government’s attorneys said the goal is to have stronger oversight over homelessness spending, after many years of documented failures by LAHSA. Attorneys who struck the proposed settlement said in court Friday that the timeline was structured to ensure a smooth transition that doesn’t disrupt homeless services.

The HMIS database and matching system, which caseworkers use to track clients and place them in homes, will switch over last to avoid disrupting services, said Shayla Myers, the lead attorney for the L.A. Continuum of Care, the body that coordinates federal homelessness funding and joined LAHSA in the lawsuit.

For taxpayers, the deal adds safeguards on spending Carter has demanded for years. LAHSA must send invoices and spending records to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) before drawing grant money, and submit receipts afterward. A HUD contractor, Guidehouse, will review its books, and the county must follow the same rules for older grants it inherits. The parties will report to Carter every three months, until LAHSA no longer has any federal roles overseen by HUD.

Bill Essayli is the first assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California.

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First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, whose office represents HUD, told LAist after the hearing that the county is probably the best equipped to take over, and scrutiny will be crucial.

“Do I have amazing confidence in the county? No,” he said, noting that LAHSA is a joint city-county agency.

“But we're going to verify that they are going to be good stewards of the tax money.” With LAHSA gone, he added, “The buck's going to stop at the county.”

Under the proposed deal, LAHSA agrees to cooperate fully with HUD's investigations. A LAHSA attorney told the judge on Friday the agency is cooperating fully with criminal investigations, adding that it was critical that HUD agreed not to reinstate LAHSA’s suspension, so that it can continue to manage federal dollars until they’re handed off.

Judge wanted more 'teeth' for the court

Carter spent much of the hearing asking attorneys for the parties what power he would have to enforce the deal after signing. The proposed settlement lets him settle disputes and receive reports, but he said that left him looking over shoulders without the authority to actually enforce it.

“I have no jurisdiction. I have no teeth,” he said.

He read aloud from 2024 hearings in a related lawsuit, known as L.A. Alliance, where he warned that bills without supporting documents should not be paid. Essayli said that the proposed settlement would be binding “and we'll vigorously enforce it.”

Myers said the deal gives the court oversight to ensure that the problems federal authorities flagged “don’t exist.”

Carter asked to have the ability to hire an expert, at about $150 an hour paid by HUD, to help him understand the quarterly reports on implementing the deal that transfers federal roles from LAHSA to the county. Essayli agreed.

How the case got here

HUD suspended LAHSA from federal funds on June 11, citing alleged failures in the agency’s financial management and conflict-of-interest safeguards. The move put roughly $240 million in expected federal homelessness funding for the region in limbo and held up federal funding HUD had already awarded.

LAHSA, which is overseen by the city and county’s elected officials, sued.

In August, Carter blocked the suspension, writing that LAHSA and HUD had been in “a joint partnership in failure,” and ordering a competition for LAHSA's federal roles. He deferred the selection to the continuum of care — the body designated by federal law to make that choice.

In October, the continuum chose the county for all four, over objections from L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and several City Council members who wanted the city to share control. The city then reached a tentative side deal giving it access to data on unhoused residents and a role placing people in city-funded housing.

What happens next

Carter said he expects to sign the proposed settlement on Monday.

Myers said the deal lets the region “build a peaceful transition of power.”

Left-leaning candidates running in three school board contests flagged by EdSource as races to watch are each leading comfortably in unofficial election results more than a week after a so-called “blue tsunami” swept the country.

Unofficial results also show progressive candidates ahead in some races in the Inland Empire, a conservative stronghold where several far-right school board candidates ran on issues such as gender identity and parents’ rights. Counties have until Dec. 3 to certify election results.

In the Orange Unified School District, four moderate incumbents are far ahead of conservative challengers in separate races. One of them, board President Stephen Glass, defeated challenger Jack Chang, and has declared victory. The conservative candidates ran largely on parents’ rights and fiscal responsibility.

“We won,” Glass said on social media. “We’ll keep putting students first and supporting every teacher, every classified professional and every family.”

All four incumbents are up by double-digit percentage points, Orange County election results show. The election follows last year’s recall of two conservative school board members.

In a race for the Davis Unified school board, an anti-transgender candidate who once stripped down to a bikini at a school board meeting, lost decisively, according to unofficial election results. Beth Bourne, president of the Yolo County chapter of Moms For Liberty, trails incumbent Elizabeth Moon by 89 percentage points, results show.

In Palo Alto — where issues over academics dominated the race — newcomers Avery Wang and Linda Henigin are ahead in unofficial results for two seats. John Craig, who ran in tandem with Wang, conceded on election night. Wang ran primarily on retaining academic rigor, especially in math. “It’s the beginning of a movement,” Wang told Palo Alto Online.

Henigin ran on a platform of improving student well-being following a recent spate of student suicides.

Elsewhere in the state, school board candidates in conservative strongholds such as Chino Valley and Temecula fared poorly in local school board races.

In Temecula, school board President Joseph Komrosky trails challenger David Sola by 10 percentage points, results show. Sola has declared victory. Komrosky had voted to ban critical race theory in district schools and attempted to ban teaching materials that mentioned slain gay rights icon Harvey Milk, drawing a sharp rebuke from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Komrosky’s apparent defeat was part of what The Press-Enterprise reported as “a seismic shift in local governance given recent elections that gave power to the Christian right.”

In Chino Valley Unified in San Bernardino County, two conservative school board candidates are trailing far behind, results show. Chris Shaw, the husband of State Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Sonja Shaw, trails Frank Gerdine by nearly 17 percentage points, while Meagan Lichthart is ahead of Shaun Smith, backed by Shaw, by 15 percentage points.

This story was originally published by EdSource.

Major service cuts to Metrolink are on hold for now thanks to a $20 million grant from California’s State Transportation Agency. The Metrolink board of directors approved the agency’s $420 million budget on Friday.

The previous budget proposal included slashing a third of weekday trains and 40% of weekend trains.

“Thankfully, our customers were spared the disappointment and frustration of losing the service they rely on to travel the region for business and pleasure,” Tom Schamber, chief financial officer at Metrolink, said at the board meeting.

How did we get here? 

The Metrolink budget had been approved quarterly since June as staff worked out the annual budget.

Metrolink staff have worked on this year’s budget since last September. The agency has pointed to slowing fare revenue, rising costs due to inflation and low ridership numbers for its budget troubles.

“Fare box revenue ended the year $14 million under budget. This was sobering, and we realized that not only was fiscal [20]26 off, but our ridership expectations for fiscal year [20]27 would need to be recalibrated to this new baseline,” Schamber said.

A majority of Metrolink’s budget is funded by Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties’ transportation agencies. For more than a year, Metrolink officials have been building a budget that member agencies, like the Orange County Transportation Authority and L.A. Metro, would approve.

L.A. Metro and OCTA cut their subsidies to Metrolink by 3% and 10%, respectively.

“The challenges ahead of us were becoming more evident,” Schamber said at Friday’s board meeting. “In addition to disappointing fare revenue and funding limitations, we must absorb inevitable cost increases in several of our largest contracts.”

What we know about the grant

The $20 million grant from the state comes with the expectation that Metrolink will retain the same service levels provided today, Schamber added.

Metrolink CEO Darren M. Kettle said another expectation is that the agency must plan to maintain its services for the upcoming year.

“We don't have a plan. We're working on a plan to make sure we have the funding to deliver the same level of service at a minimum,” Kettle said. “With respect to these conditions, based on what we know now, as of last evening, our staff is confident that Metrolink will be able to meet these conditions.”

What’s next? 

Kettle said staff got a head start on next fiscal year’s budget through the state grant application. Officials said the rail agency is also gearing up for the 2028 Olympic Games.