What You Missed In Immigration: 175K Visas Revoked, E-Filing Mandates & Citizenship Under Fire (Again)
State Department Has Revoked More Than 175,000 Visas Under Trump
Since January 2025, the State Department has revoked more than 175,000 visas. Most revocations followed law enforcement encounters, with assault, DUI, theft, and drug offenses cited as leading causes. The department also revoked visas tied to fraud, national security concerns, and social media comments celebrating the 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk. Immigration attorneys have raised concerns about the threshold: revocations can occur after a police encounter alone, without a criminal conviction.
The PERM Takeaway: A visa revocation can derail a sponsorship case at any stage. If your sponsored employee's visa is revoked while they're abroad for travel, a consular appointment, or a family visit, they may not be able to return to the U.S. to continue working. The fact that revocations can happen without a conviction lowers the threshold significantly. Employers should remind sponsored workers that any law enforcement encounter, even a minor one, can trigger immigration consequences. Beyond criminal matters, the social media dimension adds another layer of risk that most employers aren't thinking about. Companies should ensure that foreign national employees understand how the current enforcement climate operates and that they have counsel available if any issue arises. Prevention and awareness are far cheaper than trying to undo a revocation after it happens.
DHS Authorizes Mandatory E-Filing for Immigration Benefits
DHS issued an interim final rule, effective August 11, allowing USCIS to require electronic filing for certain immigration benefit requests, including green cards and work permits. Before mandating e-filing for any specific form, USCIS must ensure the form has been available online for at least 180 days and provide 60 days' public notice. Applicants who cannot file electronically can request a hardship waiver, but USCIS must have a waiver process in place before any mandate takes effect.
The PERM Takeaway: The shift toward mandatory e-filing has been coming for years, and PERM employers should welcome the direction even as they prepare for the transition. Electronic filing creates cleaner records, faster submission confirmation, and a more auditable trail. For PERM cases that involve multiple forms across the DOL and USCIS pipeline, digital consistency reduces the risk of the kind of documentation gaps that now result in outright denials under the new no-RFE policy. Employers and their counsel should start migrating all filing workflows to electronic systems now, rather than waiting for specific mandates. The waiver provision for hardship cases is worth noting, but most corporate filers won't qualify and shouldn't plan around it. Get your digital filing infrastructure ready.
DHS Proposes Doubling Naturalization Application Fees
DHS has proposed raising the Form N-400 naturalization fee from $760 to $1,330 for paper filings and from $710 to $1,280 for online filings. The proposal also eliminates the reduced fee option for lower-income applicants and ends fee waiver eligibility for both the N-400 and the N-336 appeal form. Current and former military service members would remain exempt. Public comments are due by August 24.
The PERM Takeaway: Naturalization sits at the end of the immigration journey that begins with PERM, and rising costs at every stage add up. An employee who goes through labor certification, an I-140 petition, adjustment of status, and then naturalization is now looking at a significantly more expensive path from start to finish. For employers who frame sponsorship as a long-term investment in talent, these cost increases affect how employees perceive the value of staying in the U.S. versus pursuing opportunities elsewhere. Consider including naturalization fee support or reimbursement as part of your retention benefits for long-tenured sponsored employees. It's a relatively small investment that signals commitment and strengthens loyalty at the moment when an employee finally reaches the finish line.
Trump Signs New Executive Orders Targeting Birthright Citizenship
Weeks after the Supreme Court struck down his first attempt, President Trump signed two new executive orders on August 6 restricting birthright citizenship and targeting "birth tourism." The orders exclude U.S.-born children of foreign government employees and citizenship-fraud cases, and direct agencies to deny visas to suspected birth tourists. The ACLU and other groups filed suit on August 11, asking a federal court to block implementation. The legal battle over birthright citizenship is heading into round three.
The PERM Takeaway: The substance of these orders is narrow, focused on government employees' children and suspected birth tourism, but the persistence of the effort keeps uncertainty alive for the families of sponsored workers. Employees with U.S.-born children have already weathered one Supreme Court challenge and are now watching a second wave of executive action face immediate legal opposition. For employers, the takeaway remains the same as when this fight started: reassure your foreign national workforce that the 14th Amendment protections upheld by the Supreme Court have not changed, stay informed about the litigation, and avoid letting political noise distract from the practical work of moving sponsorship cases forward.
ICE Body Camera Rollout Set to Complete by End of August
ICE Acting Director David Venturella announced that every officer and agent in the field will be equipped with body-worn cameras by the end of August, ahead of schedule. The rollout follows fatal incidents in Maine, Texas, and Minnesota that drew scrutiny over the lack of recording during enforcement operations. Agency policy allows expedited footage release after serious injury or death in custody, but ICE retains discretion to withhold footage if release could compromise an investigation or someone's privacy.
The PERM Takeaway: Body cameras on ICE officers don't change the PERM process, but they do change the enforcement landscape that your sponsored employees navigate every day. Recorded encounters provide documentation that can protect workers in valid immigration status from wrongful detention or overreach during site visits, traffic stops, or community enforcement operations. Employers should see this as a positive development for accountability. If your workplace receives an ICE site visit, body camera footage creates a record that protects both the agency and the employer. Make sure your HR team knows the protocol for handling site visits and that your employees understand their rights during any enforcement encounter.
Stay sharp, stay compliant, and we'll see you next week.
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