The Trump administration is reducing the time refugees have to challenge the revocation of their status from 30 days down to 10 days, a move critics say could put tens of thousands of people who fled persecution and wars in their home countries on a path to deportation.
It primarily impacts individuals reviewed under a broader administration initiative, including at least 185,000 refugees admitted during the Biden administration who have pending green card applications. The rule specifically cites the refugee screening procedures used during the Biden administration.
It is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to restrict and transform a program that has served as a pathway for refugees for decades.
The goal of the new policy, according to the document, is to “mitigate potential risks” associated with people who were admitted as refugees but were not eligible for refugee status.
Welcoming refugees has been a matter of bipartisan consensus in the United States since Congress passed the Refugee Act with overwhelming support in 1980. That law made refugee applications some of the most rigorously scrutinized within the immigration system.
Some maintain refugees will not have enough time to defend their status under the new policy.
“These families did everything asked of them,” said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge. “They submitted to interviews, background checks and years of waiting abroad, only setting foot on US soil once government officials approved their applications.”
Now, she said, "the Homeland Security Department wants to revisit those decisions on a 10-day clock, a notice period wholly insufficient to find a lawyer, translate documents or get records out of a country they were forced to flee.”
Refugee advocates and organizations—such as Global Refuge, HIAS, and Church World Service—argue that a 10-day window does not give affected individuals a fair or meaningful opportunity to hire a lawyer, translate papers, or obtain necessary documents from their home countries. They warn that refugees who have fled violence, persecution, and displacement will be at risk of being deported to the countries where they could face harm, persecution, and torture.
“They are trying to upend the core principle that refugee resettlement represents permanent protection,” said HIAS vice president Naomi Steimberg.
Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The State Department referred questions to DHS.
The Trump administration has drastically altered the refugee program and transformed it into a mechanism for resettling white South Africans in the country.
In September, the government announced plans to limit the total number of refugees admitted to the country in 2027 to 17,500, the majority of whom are white South Africans.
(With agency inputs from AP via PTI)