DHS revets refugees in residency review, sparking legal challenge

For refugees who believed a green card would mark the end of uncertainty, the new federal review system has reopened the risk of arrest, detention and removal scrutiny after a year in the United States.

In February 2026, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a memo saying refugees who had not yet adjusted to lawful permanent resident status could be arrested and detained for re-screening one year after arrival. The policy revived review of refugee cases already in process and was reported to reach some refugees who had already filed green-card applications but had not received approval.

The scale is wide. The Associated Press reported that the move could affect tens of thousands of refugees who are lawfully in the country, while one legal summary put the number at roughly 100,000 people. USCIS policy guidance, in Volume 7, Part L of its Policy Manual, says refugees generally apply to adjust status to lawful permanent residence after one year in the United States, and the new memo turned that routine step into a fresh point of federal custody and review.

Critics said the change reversed long-standing safeguards and expanded the government’s power to revisit immigration status long after admission. DHS framed the shift as a security and fraud-screening measure, but legal experts said the policy effectively broadens deportation leverage by reopening old files, detaining people who were already present legally, and treating the green-card process as another enforcement checkpoint rather than a settled path to permanence.

The challenge moved quickly into federal court in Minnesota, where judges temporarily blocked parts of the policy. That litigation underscored how the dispute is not only about refugees, but about the scope of executive power to re-screen people who were admitted under one set of rules and then pulled back into scrutiny under another.

The refugee review also fits a larger enforcement pattern. In May 2026, the Justice Department announced denaturalization actions against 12 people, continuing a push to strip citizenship in selected cases. The broader precedent includes Operation Janus, a DHS initiative that identified about 315,000 cases with missing fingerprint records, and a 2016 Homeland Security inspector general report that found 1,029 potentially ineligible individuals had been granted citizenship because of incomplete fingerprint records. Together, those efforts show how old records, fraud allegations and national-security claims are being used to revisit immigration status years after admission.