This article was prepared with the assistance of ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, of which Loan Huynh is an active member.
On September 4, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it plans to recruit and train special agents who will exercise additional law enforcement authorities. Specifically, “newly minted USCIS 1811 classified officers (commonly known as special agents) will be empowered to investigate, arrest, and present for prosecution those who violate America’s immigration laws under a final rule.”
The special agents’ activities will include “making arrests, carrying firearms, executing search and arrest warrants, and other powers standard for federal law enforcement.” USCIS said it “will have greater capacity to support [Department of Homeland Security] efforts by handling investigations from start to finish, instead of referring certain cases to Homeland Security Investigation[s] [HSI] within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE]. This will allow ICE HSI and [Enforcement and Removal Operations] to focus on disrupting transnational crime and capturing and deporting illegal aliens. USCIS will be able to more efficiently clear its backlogs of aliens who seek to exploit our immigration system through fraud, prosecute them, and remove them from the country.”
