Policy

Ali is an Afghan doctor in rural West Virginia who treated more than 1,600 patients last year — many of them with nowhere else to go. He followed every immigration rule, applied for his green card, and waited. Then the Trump administration froze his application, and this fall his work visa expires. Now the question is not just whether he can stay in the US — it's whether his patients will have a doctor at all.

If you are waiting for asylum in the United States, you may soon have to wait a full year before you can apply for a work permit. The federal government is proposing to double the current waiting period — from 180 days to 365 days. For hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, that could mean a year with no legal right to work.

First responders in the US may soon get their passports for free. The Department of State has proposed a new fee exemption under the First Responders Passport Act. If finalized, it could save qualifying applicants the full cost of a US passport.

You spent hundreds of dollars on a USCIS filing fee, waited months for your turn in line — and then USCIS rejected your application because of a signature problem. In 2026, USCIS is enforcing stricter rules about what counts as a valid signature on immigration forms. A bad signature can cost you your filing fee, your place in the queue, and in some cases, a critical deadline.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the US who work legally under special work permits may soon lose that right. The federal government has proposed new rules that would cut off work authorization for parolees, people with deferred action, and immigrants with final deportation orders who were released while waiting for removal. If the rules take effect, the impact could reach into the billions of dollars — and into the daily lives of people who have been working and paying taxes for years.

On June 3, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order giving customs agents sweeping new powers over who can import goods into the United States. For the first time, both US and foreign importers face the same strict transparency rules — or risk losing their importing privileges entirely. If your business or livelihood depends on moving goods across US borders, this order affects you now.