March 3 Updates
National
USCIS will issue a new form to implement enhanced screening and vetting standards pursuant to section 2 of the EO “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats." The form will collect 24 data elements, including information about an applicant's family members (parents, spouse, siblings, and children), including the names, telephone numbers. dates of birth and residence(s) of family members. The new form will be used with 9 current USCIS applications, including naturalization, asylum, registration for permanent residence and adjustment of status, travel documents, refugee/asylee relative petitions.
Starting March 3, 2025, the public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed changes
On February 25, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new scheme, the Alien Registration Requirement, requiring all noncitizens in the United States to register. The announcement lists categories of people, who are deemed to already be registered: people who have green cards, parole, I‑94s, visas, EADs or Border Crossing Cards, anyone in removal proceedings, anyone who has filed a form associated with lawful permanent residence, and anyone who has been fingerprinted for another benefit such as DACA or Temporary Protected Status.
read more details here from the National Law Review
We cannot give official legal advice to anyone regarding the registration “requirement”, but we can say that the current administration is using laws that have been on the books since the 1950’s to try and back this Executive Order up, when those same laws have been largely unenforced. It is not clear how the federal government will be able to enforce this new edict – stay tuned for more updates as they come.
USCIS seems to be the hub through which they are expecting most people to register, so the rollout may be a bit slow (we have yet to see specific forms, links, etc)
NIJC explainer for New Class Action Settlement Requires ICE To Stop Rampant Constitutional Violations For People Subject To ICE Detainers
When most law enforcement agencies arrest someone, the Fourth Amendment sets guardrails to protect the impacted person’s constitutional right to liberty. Typically, law enforcement must prove to a neutral reviewer, usually a judge, that there is probable cause to keep this person in jail. That is not the case for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has routinely issued forms called “detainers” to local authorities requesting that they keep an individual extra time, so an ICE officer can pick them up. Historically, there has been no neutral oversight of the probable cause for the detainer arrest. A new settlement agreement under Gonzalez v. ICE is set to change this for most of the United States starting on March 4, 2025.
Illinois
Find your representatives in IL here
Bills coming up in the state legislature need our support:
SB1857 / HB3400 - restoration of the VTTC program to its original eligibility criteria, once again allowing survivors:
who are preparing to apply to file an application for immigration status, to receive funds to pay for food and essential items during this vulnerable time period.
who fled to the U.S. alone (i.e.., the vast majority of human trafficking survivors were forced to flee their country without their family) to be eligible for the program again.
See fact sheet here
Please email andreakovach@povertylaw.org to have your organization sign on to a letter of support for the bill organized by the Poverty Law Center, or to get more information.
Sign on as co-sponsors of the bill here
MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund) helped write these bills
would prevent schools from disclosing information about a child’s immigration status or working with ICE agents
SB 2033 - Immigration Safe Zones Act
Presented by State Senator Villanueva (of Little Village) and Cristina Castro (of Elgin) – contact them for how advocates can help in pushing this bill forward