TPS updates for March 2026: Haiti and Yemen
Haiti: On February 2, 2026, a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C. temporarily blocked TPS termination for Haitians. TPS for Haitians was set to end on February 3, 2026, but the court order indefinitely postpones the termination. See the updated information available on the USCIS website here.
Yemen: On February 13, 2026, USCIS announced that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had terminated TPS for Yemen. The termination is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on March 3, 2026. Monitor the USCIS website here for publication of the last day of TPS status for Yemeni nationals.
Lawsuit filed against Trump Administration for 75-country immigrant visa ban
On February 2, 2026, several US citizens and immigration and legal organizations sued the Trump Administration for its January 14, 2026, immigrant visa (green card) approval ban for consular posts in 75 countries. See our previous post about the ban here, which is based on a public charge argument that individuals from these 75 countries are more likely to become dependent on public benefits like Medicaid and SNAP. The lawsuit, CLINIC v. Rubio, asserts that the ban’s public charge basis is “‘unsupported and demonstrably false,’”* as most of the affected would-be new green card holders will not become eligible for public benefits for years. *CLINIC v. Rubio (via The New York Times). The lawsuit instead asserts that the public charge rationale is a stand-in for previous race-based immigrant visa quotas that were abolished during the Civil Rights Movement.
Read an overview of CLINIC v. Rubio from the National Immigration Law Center (with a link to the lawsuit complaint) here and a summary from the New York Times here.
Summary of Current Travel Bans from CLINIC
On February 6, 2026, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (“CLINIC”) published an article summarizing the current status of all of the Trump Administration’s travel bans to date. Access the article here.
AILA Practice Pointer: removal of one-year abroad requirement for religious workers
On February 23, 2026, the American Immigration Lawyers Association published a practice pointer on DHS’s January 16, 2026 Interim Final Rule that removes the one-year abroad requirement for religious workers seeking to extend their stay in the US. See our alert from last month about the Interim Final Rule here. AILA’s practice pointer discusses several aspects of the Interim Final Rule such as when the “five year clock” restarts for the R-1 visa, petition filing timing, potential consular processing issues, applicability to R-2 dependents, and retaining priority dates for religious workers.
Read AILA’s Practice Pointer here.
AILA Flyer: Birthright Citizenship Executive Order: What you Need to Know
On February 20, 2026, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“AILA”) published a one-page flyer summarizing President Trump’s Executive Order on birthright citizenship, its current status, and its impacts if the Supreme Court allows the Order to become effective later this year. Access the flyer here.
DHS proposes rule to extend work permit waiting period for asylum applicants from 6 months to 1 year
On February 20, 2026, DHS proposed a new Rule that would double the amount of time asylum applicants must wait before becoming eligible to apply for a work permit while their asylum application is pending with the government. Asylum applicants are currently eligible to apply for a work permit after their case has been pending with the government for six months, but the Proposed Rule would extend the waiting period to one year.
The Trump Administration states that the move is intended to “reduce the incentive for [noncitizens] to file fraudulent asylum claims so they can obtain work authorizations.” With over 1.4 million pending asylum applications and extensive adjudication timelines, asylum applicants typically become eligible for employment authorization months or years before the government starts working on their asylum claims; due to this, the Trump Administration claims that “nearly every illegal [noncitizen] attempts to exploit the system by applying for asylum” with a frivolous claim in order to become eligible for employment authorization.
The Proposed Rule will likely substantially negatively impact asylum seekers, who would have to double the amount of time they rely on family, friends, and community aid organizations to support them while they await work authorization, putting a strain not only on asylum seekers but also our communities who benefit from their employment.
Read the press release from USCIS here and the Proposed Rule in the Federal Register here.
Goldman Sachs report finds 80% decline in immigrant employment for 2026 in comparison to 2010’s
A February 16, 2026, report from Goldman Sachs found that net immigrant employment rates have dropped by 80% in 2026 compared to the 2010’s, as published by Fortune. During the 2010’s, the United States netted an average immigrant employment increase of 1,000,000 people per year. In 2025, that rate fell to a net increase of 500,000, and this year it is expected to fall further to just a net increase of 200,000. The report states that the decline has been caused by President Trump’s anti-immigration crusade of elevated deportations and travel and visa bans. Goldman Sachs cautions that the dramatic decline “is fundamentally altering the nation’s labor supply mathematics and lowering the threshold for job growth needed to maintain economic stability.” Fortune.
Read Fortune’s reporting on the Goldman Sachs report here.
Cap season update: registration is March 4-19, 2026
H-1B cap season is quickly approaching with Fiscal Year 2027 lottery registration scheduled for March 4-19, 2026. As a reminder, this year USCIS is transitioning from a random lottery to a weighted lottery. Under a December 29, 2025, Final Rule, USCIS will favor registrations for “higher skilled” nonimmigrants by allocating more registrations to higher-paid workers. USCIS will use the four wage levels from the Department of Labor Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey to allocate more lottery entries to registrants with higher wages. Registrants with Level I wages will receive one entry, Level II wages will receive two entries, Level III wages will receive three entries, and Level IV wages will receive four entries.
The proposed changes will increase the amount of time needed to prepare and submit each H-1B lottery entry, as an analysis of the employer’s offered position and selection of the proper OEWS occupational code and wage level will be required. These changes will likely also impact if companies will sponsor recent college graduates.
Given this advanced timeline for e-registration and additional complications resulting from the new weighted lottery, employers should decide as soon as possible whether they will register their employee(s) in the H-1B cap lottery. Please feel free to contact the attorneys of Iandoli, Desai & Cronin now with your questions about potential H-1B sponsorship.
Visa Bulletin: EB-2 now current for All Other Countries category and significant advancements in most other categories
The Department of State publishes a monthly Visa Bulletin which operates as the “waiting list” for green cards (immigrant visas), with an individual’s Priority Date serving as their place in line. The Bulletin identifies all immigrant visa “preference” categories and indicates whether a backlog exists for that category. When a backlog exists, an individual in that category may not apply for a green card (or “adjust status”) until their Priority Date becomes “current.” A priority date is current when it is earlier than the date listed in the Visa Bulletin. The Bulletin lists family-based (“FB-”) preference categories and employment-based (“EB-") preference categories. These categories are further separated into two charts: the Final Action Dates chart and the Dates for Filing chart. The Final Action Dates chart indicates whether an individual can expect USCIS to make a decision on their application soon, whereas the Dates for Filing chart, if USCIS chooses to use it that month, indicates whether an individual may file their adjustment application and receive the benefits associated with having a green card application pending with USCIS.
In March 2026, USCIS will be using the Dates for Filing chart for both employment- and family-based preference categories.
The EB-2 and EB-3 preference categories remain backlogged for all countries; however, there are significant advancements in many EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 categories. Most notably, the EB-2 category is now Current for the Mexico, Philippines, and All Other countries categories (“All Other”). The State Department advanced Priority Dates as follows:
EB-1:
All Other: still Current
China: 4 months
India: 4 months
EB-2:
All Other: 16.5 months (now Current)
China: no change
India: 11 months
EB-3:
All Other: 3.5 months
China: no change
India: no change
Other Workers:
All Other: 6.5 months
China: no change
India: no change
EB-4: 21.5 months
See the March 2026 Visa Bulletin here.
If you have questions about planning, please schedule a consultation with one of the attorneys at Iandoli, Desai & Cronin (info@iandoli.com).
100 U.S. Senators and Representatives send letter to Secretary Noem urging the healthcare industry’s exemption from Trump’s $100,000 payment requirement for H-1B petitions.
On February 11, 2026, Representatives Clarke and Lawler of New York and 98 other members of Congress sent a bipartisan, bicameral letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, urging the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) to exempt the healthcare sector from the new $100,000 payment requirement for H-1B petitions that require consular processing. Read our previous posts about the $100,000 payment here.
The congressional letter highlights that “worsening workforce shortages across all health care professional are significantly diminishing access to care in rural and urban communities across the nation” and that “health care organizations must be able to recruit staff in the most cost-effective manner so they can use their financial resources to hire as many caregivers as possible to take care of their communities. Rural hospitals and urban safety net hospitals face uncommon recruitment and retention issues and will most acutely feel the effects of the $100,000 fee. These hospitals rely heavily on the H-1B visa to maintain adequate staffing and offer comprehensive services in high-need areas. 21 million Americans live in areas where foreign-trained physicians account for at least half of all practicing physicians.”
Read the congressional letter to Noem here.