The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to deport at least 50 green card holders through a new unit dedicated to revetting thousands of immigrants with permanent residency across the country, according to internal data obtained by The New York Times.
Those cases represent a small fraction of the total number of green card holders who have been reviewed so far. About 2,890 cases had been reviewed or were still being assessed as of May 7. Eighty percent of those cases were deemed as requiring “no further action.” More than 500 green card holders were still under review.
The figures reveal the early results of the Trump administration’s efforts to screen green card holders suspected of committing fraud or posing threats. The recent creation of the unit also underscores how aggressively administration officials are trying to root out immigrants they believe should be stripped of their legal status and removed from the country.
It is the latest sign that the administration is broadening its immigration crackdown beyond those living in the country illegally to those who have gained lawful status. Officials have launched campaigns to try to revoke the statuses of refugees and naturalized citizens in recent months, provoking fear among many longtime residents that their status is not secure.
The Trump administration has said it is necessary to revet broad groups of immigrants because of lax screening standards under the Biden administration. But the effort is coming under criticism by some former homeland security officials under Democratic and Republican administrations who have questioned the use of resources and pointed out that the internal figures show only about 2 percent of green card holders reviewed were deemed potentially deportable.
Zach Kahler, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the immigration system, said the agency was “evolving through organizational realignments to better protect American citizens and support our mission priorities.”
“U.S.C.I.S.’s first and foremost mission is to safeguard America by rigorously vetting and screening aliens,” Mr. Kahler said in a statement. “We will continue to implement changes as we identify opportunities to strengthen the U.S. immigration system.”
Mr. Kahler said the people being revetted included those arrested and convicted of various crimes, including sexual assault, domestic violence, driving under the influence and possession of drug paraphernalia. Some “admitted to membership in an organization suspected of illegally or illicitly obtaining export-controlled information and technology for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Mr. Kahler said.
He added that those who were being screened also included people who were determined by U.S.C.I.S. to have lied to get their permanent resident status.
But the fact that few of those targeted were found to have been approved improperly suggests that the sweep included a broader pool of people than just those convicted of crimes or who had committed fraud.
Tens of thousands more green card holders across the country have been identified for review, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly. Officers working for the unit have been tasked with reviewing criminal records and applications submitted by green card holders to find indications of potential fraud, the person said.
Some former homeland security officials questioned the effectiveness of the agency’s focus on revetting immigrants already approved for legal status.
“There have been a lot of questions about whether or not this is a responsible use of U.S.C.I.S.’s resources, especially when you consider how backlogged the agency is,” said Sarah Pierce, a former policy analyst at Citizenship and Immigration Services who is now the director of social policy at the center-left think tank Third Way. “I think the numbers only continue to raise those questions.”
The agency had more than 11 million pending applications for a variety of immigration benefits at the end of September, according to the latest data from U.S.C.I.S. That backlog has continued to grow over the years, roughly doubling since the end of 2019.
The unit tasked with reviewing green card holders is part of a new division within the agency called the “Tactical Operations Division,” according to documents reviewed by The Times. It has several units, including “LPR Operations,” “Denaturalization” and “Refugee Revetting.” The New Yorker reported earlier on the division’s creation.
In an email reviewed by The Times, Daniel Andrade, the division’s director, described the unit dedicated to screening green card holders as an “LPR removal apparatus,” referring to lawful permanent residents. About 40 immigration officers are working on screening green card holders, according to the documents.
The Trump administration’s revetting efforts are significantly broader and more aggressive than previous efforts to review immigrants lawfully in the country, according to former homeland security officials.
A green card holder’s criminal record would typically be reviewed by Citizenship and Immigration Services when that individual applied for renewal, naturalization or another benefit. Through the new unit, the agency is more proactively reviewing and seeking to deport green card holders.
“This intense focus on revetting is new,” said Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, the senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Green card holders can be deported for various reasons, including convictions of certain crimes or fraudulently obtaining status. A lawful permanent resident who is convicted of drug trafficking or murder can be deported, for instance. Some minor offenses can also make them eligible for deportation. Other misdemeanors typically do not make them removable, such as a first-time D.U.I. that did not result in injuries.
Deportation is not immediate. Green card holders usually have the chance to appear before an immigration judge who issues a decision on their case.
There is limited public data on the number of green card holders who are deported annually. The federal government has typically opted not to target them unless they have committed particularly serious crimes, according to former homeland security officials.
Kerry E. Doyle, a partner at Green & Spiegel who was the top Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer during the Biden administration, said it was not that rare for the government to try to remove green card holders who were eligible for deportation, but it is also not frequent.
“They’re definitely not as commonplace,” Ms. Doyle said.
