The Issue
On March 10, 2025, President Trump’s nominated Joseph Edlow to serve as Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). His nomination is subject to Senate confirmation which should begin within the next few months. On July 15, 2025, Mr. Edlow’s nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 52-47.
A Deeper Dive
Mr. Edlow has a long and distinguished career in immigration enforcement, beginning as an Assistant Chief Counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He subsequently served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, working on immigration policy matters and later as Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee, working for Subcommittee Chair Raúl Labrador on enforcement and criminal immigration issues.
Mr. Edlow began his career at USCIS as Chief Counsel, supervising a team of lawyers responsible for all agency-related legal matters. He subsequently served as the Deputy Director for Policy at USCIS from 2020 to 2021 and was selected as Acting Director of USCIS during the last few months President Trump’s first administration.
Beyond his government service, Mr. Edlow joined The Heritage Foundation in 2022 as a visiting fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center and was listed as a Contributor to its Project 2025 – Mandate for Leadership.
While generally recognized as an amiable and effective manager with deep agency and policy expertise, Mr. Edlow’s selection to lead the benefits adjudication arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) signals that the agency will fully partner with its sister agencies, ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as key components of the Trump Administration’s enforcement-focused approach to immigration, despite the fact that USCIS was created in 2003 as a separate DHS agency for the express purpose of separating the benefits adjudication function of legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service from its enforcement functions.
What Employers Need to Know
With Mr. Edlow at the helm of USCIS, employers and their foreign national employees should expect high levels of substantive scrutiny and security vetting of all benefits applications, with commensurate increases in rejections, Requests for Evidence and denials. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Edlow also expressed a belief that there is significant fraud in the H-1B and other nonimmigrant and immigrant worker programs and indicated a desire to eliminate practical training options for F-1 and J-1 students.
In order to minimize potential lapses in immigration status and any corresponding business disruption, it is imperative that employers review their standard sponsorship practices, initiate processing of immigration matters as early as possible and consult with their Meltzer Hellrung attorney to develop strategies to maintain a compliant legal workforce in an era of extreme vetting and increased processing delays.
