NEWS: Schiff, Padilla, Senate Judiciary Democrats Formally Request Independent Investigation Into Trump Attacks On Legal Immigration

In letters to the Government Accountability Office, Senators request probes into the Trump Administration's indefinite holds on immigration processing and re-reviews of previously approved green card and naturalization applications

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla (both D-Calif.), along with Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, formally requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate the Trump Administration's attacks on the legal immigration system.

The Trump Administration has summarily halted most immigrant benefits processing for immigration applicants from 39 countries, stopped visa processing for immigrant visa applicants from 75 countries, and ended most refugee and asylum processing. At the same time, the Administration has threatened to conduct a so-called "re-review" of individuals from 39 countries who were approved for any immigration benefit under the Biden Administration-including those who have since become U.S. citizens-and refugees and asylees

The Administration has provided little explanation for the basis for these sweeping changes, leaving immigrants and their families, employers, and communities completely lost as to how to comply with immigration laws, maintain status, and avoid arbitrary immigration enforcement.

In letters to the GAO Acting Comptroller General, the Senators requested GAO start an inquiry into both the pauses in immigration processing and into the re-reviews of approved applicants, including those approved for a green card or U.S. citizenship. To date, the Department of Homeland Security has failed to provide information to Congress on these sweeping changes to halt most legal immigration.

On the pauses in immigration processing, the Senators wrote: "We are deeply concerned that these changes-which have left immigrants, their families, and employers at a loss for how to obtain or maintain lawful status or presence-are an attempt to circumvent the statutory scheme for lawful immigration to the United States, rather than a legitimate exercise in improving the integrity of our immigration system."

"Members of the public, including immigrants and their families, continue to lack clarity on what steps USCIS and the State Department are taking to resume their normal adjudicative missions," the Senators concluded.

Full text of the letter requesting an independent investigation into pauses in immigration processing is available here.

On the re-reviews of those approved for a green card or U.S. citizenship, the Senators wrote: "We are concerned that these re-reviews are a pretext for targeting immigrants and naturalized U.S. citizens for unwarranted scrutiny and selective enforcement, rather than a legitimate exercise in reducing fraud or improving vetting in our immigration system that is based on articulable, specific indicia that merits re-review."

The Senators then formally requested a GAO investigation and made a series of information requests to "to provide clarity to immigrants, American families, and the American public regarding these re-reviews."

Full text of the letter requesting an independent investigation into re-reviews of previously approved applicants for green cards and naturalization is available here.

In addition to Schiff and Padilla, the letters are signed by U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

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