U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the establishment of a specialized unit to strengthen the ability of America’s immigration system to screen out terrorists, criminal aliens, and other foreign nationals who pose potential threats to public safety or who have committed fraud or other crimes.
Once fully operationalized, the USCIS Vetting Center, headquartered in Atlanta, will centralize the enhanced vetting of foreigners and allow the agency to respond more nimbly to changes in a shifting threat landscape.
USCIS Vetting Center
“USCIS’ role in the nation’s immigration system has never been more critical. In the wake of several recent incidents of violence, including a foreign national attacking National Guard service members on U.S. soil, establishing this vetting center will give us more enhanced capabilities to safeguard national security and ensure public safety,” said USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow.
“Under the Biden administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was pushed to expedite the immigration and naturalization processes with little regard for how that affected national security and the safety of our communities,” said Edlow.
“We changed that approach on day one of the Trump administration. Under President Trump, we are building more protective measures that ensure fraud, deception, and threats do not breach the integrity of our immigration system.”
Once the new vetting center is fully operational, it will draw on the full spectrum of classified and nonclassified screening and vetting capabilities and provide a more thorough supplemental review of immigration applications and petitions. These reviews will leverage state-of-the-art technologies, including artificial intelligence.
The center will utilize Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement and intelligence community screening resources to conduct this critical work and will be tasked with conducting reviews of pending applications, as well as a more holistic review of already-approved applications for aliens. Reviews will prioritize applications from presidentially designated countries of concern.
More Frequent Vetting
The US had discontinued the ‘automatic extension of Employment Authorization Documents’ for foreign workers, affecting nearly all visa-holding foreign workers. As a result, these workers will face increased scrutiny and vetting during the renewal of their work permits.
USCIS says more frequent renewals will allow for tighter vetting, improved fraud detection, and screening of security risks.
After ending the ‘automatic extension of Employment Authorization Documents’ for foreign workers, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has updated its Policy Manual to reduce the maximum validity period for Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) for certain categories of foreign workers.
The maximum validity period for initial and renewal EADs will be changed from 5 years to 18 months for several categories of foreign workers.
The recent move by the Trump administration has also created challenges for highly skilled foreign workers seeking to immigrate to the US on H-1B visas. Starting December 15, all H-1B applicants will have to meet the standards set by the ‘online presence review’.
Earlier, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa were mandated to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to public to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law.