Trump Policies Withhold Immigration Records, Raising Deportation Risk for Thousands
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Sep 14
Trump Policies Withhold Immigration Records, Raising Deportation Risk for Thousands
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 14
Summary
Dozens of immigration lawyers say immigrants seeking proof of lawful status are now receiving heavily redacted files or outright denials, leaving some unable to document their cases and vulnerable to deportation.
Hundreds of thousands of records requests are filed each year, and lawyers say those files are often the only way to reconstruct a full immigration history for amnesty claims, adoptions or other legal-status applications.
The reported shift breaks with past practice, when agencies routinely released petitions, interview transcripts and other records; lawyers say officials now sometimes claim even known documents cannot be found.
Timothy Turner, a former senior USCIS records official, alleged in a 2025 whistle-blower complaint that the agency adopted policies to restrict access, including withholding non-English documents, marriage certificates, bank statements, tax forms and parts of court transcripts.