USCIS Forms Update Notice

Good afternoon, We recently updated the following USCIS form(s): Form G-1055, Fee Schedule 10/16/2026 08:26 AM EDT Edition Date: 10/16/26. You can find the edition date at the bottom of the page of Form G-1055, Fee Schedule. For more information, please visit our Forms Updates page. https://www.uscis.gov/g-1055

DHS Is Using FEMA Buildings as Pop-up Immigration Courts, Denying Public Access

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has been using federal office buildings in several cities to operate as makeshift immigration courts, with judges deciding cases via Zoom video, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Two such courts have been confirmed in Washington, DC and in Manhattan, New York. Additional locations are being considered in Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; Denver, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. Notably, the two pop-up courts in Washington DC and Manhattan bear no signage indicating they are immigration courts. And — in violation of existing policy — the courts are not open to the public or attorneys. Immigration courts and courtrooms are generally open to the public, without prior registration. In response to American Community Media’s emailed request for information, DHS said it began using the FEMA Headquarters Conference Center to conduct “critical operations,” beginning Sept. 8. “This arrangement does not impact FEMA’s workforce or disrupt any of FEMA’s normal operations. FEMA has previously supported Department and interagency activities in the designated conference space. No FEMA personnel or operational resources are being diverted to support the DHS activities,” said DHS in the statement to ACoM. The agency noted that immigration court hearings are administered by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Congressman denied access Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, and the the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has oversight over FEMA, said at a Sept. 29 AILA press briefing that he arrived at the DC FEMA office building Sept. 23, expecting to conduct congressional oversight. Instead, the congressman — who had brought along staff from his committee and staffers from the office of Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois — found himself standing outside an unmarked set of rooms that had been converted into an immigration court. He was told by officers at the building that he could not enter. “I indicated that I was a member of Congress, and I was here to provide oversight and to enter and to see this series of rooms,” said Stanton. “They said no, I was not allowed to enter. They handed me a small piece of paper that indicated an email that I should use if I had any questions about the policy. Obviously, that was completely and totally unacceptable.” Judge says courts must be open to the public ”We were working the phones for several hours, trying to get access,” said Stanton, noting that he and congressional staffers called all the agencies involved, including FEMA, ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “I was shocked because each agency blamed the other,” Stanton said. “It’s FEMA’s building, it’s happening in their office, but FEMA said they had no authority to dictate who could enter into the impromptu courtroom area. Same thing with ICE, same thing with EOIR.” Eventually, a DHS official determined that Stanton could enter — but that Congressional staff could not. The following morning, Stanton returned. This time, he was permitted to enter more quickly, although congressional staff again were barred. In its statement to ACoM, DHS confirmed that Stanton was able to enter the makeshift court in DC, but noted further: “Access to EOIR hearing spaces is governed by EOIR policy, applicable federal requirements, and facility-specific security procedures.” Remote hearings Inside the court, Stanton said he found a waiting area and a conference room where immigration judges appeared by video. On the first day, he said, no one appeared for court during the 20 to 30 minutes he was inside. On the second day, there was a list of people scheduled for hearings — but none of them appeared. Stanton questioned whether those in deportation proceedings had been sufficiently informed of the change of venue. The congressman said he watched several hearings remotely conducted by judges and heard attorneys arguing cases. At one point, someone told the judge that a congressman from Arizona wanted to observe the proceeding. The judge’s response, Stanton said, was unequivocal: A member of Congress — like any member of the public — should be permitted to observe. “The judge verbally indicated that there should be no stopping citizens from entering this courtroom,” said the congressman. “Which I found very interesting in light of how incredibly difficult it was for even me as a member of Congress to get in.” ACoM asked Stanton whether the people adjudicating cases remotely in the DC pop-up courtroom were actually judges or DHS staff. “I can only speak to what I saw myself. In the time I spent in the room in which I saw the judge interact with other attorneys, it was clearly an immigration judge. I believe he was robed as a judge.” But he said he could not speak to whether other types of adjudicators were presiding over proceedings at the pop-up locations. ‘Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this?’ Stanton and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland — ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee — have since written to federal agencies, including DHS, USCIS, and the Justice Department. In their Sept. 28 letter, the two congressmen asked why a FEMA facility is being used for immigration proceedings and whether people are receiving adequate notice of hearings. “Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this, at a time when we’re still in hurricane season, at a time when natural disasters are a real problem, and all of a sudden, FEMA now has all sorts of extra office room for this procedure?” Stanton queried at the AILA news briefing. Greg Chen, AILA’s senior director for government relations, said immigration hearings are also being conducted in DHS-controlled space on the third floor of the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, rather than the traditional immigration courtroom on the 12th floor. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York has conducted regular visits to the 12th floor courthouse. But he was blocked from entering the third-floor space, according to Chen. “These dramatic policy changes are creating chaos, threatening due process, and are making significant impacts on people’s lives, and it’s happening in secret,” he said. DHS appears to be targeting people without attorneys The lack of transparency is particularly troubling because the unusual courts appear to be handling large numbers of people who do not have attorneys, said Kel White, associate director for public education and training at the Acacia Center for Justice and chair-elect of AILA’s Washington, D.C., chapter. “We only found out about these hidden courts because attorneys in our chapter were mistakenly sent those notices,” White said. “Had those errors not occurred, many members of our community here would not have known that these proceedings were even taking place.” White said that was a sharp departure from the way new immigration court locations historically have been established — with stakeholder meetings, advance notice and information about which cases would be assigned to which court. Instead, she said, attorneys and immigrants are struggling to find the new locations and, in some cases, even determine when their hearings are taking place. The ‘Where’s Waldo’ of immigration courts At the FEMA site, Google Maps directed White to a different building. There was no signage identifying the immigration court. “For me to find that court itself was like playing hide and seek or the Where’s Waldo of courts,” White said. “But that’s a children’s game, and this is life with real consequences to the people who are entering that court, where failing to appear can mean deportation. And for many people, that can mean life or death if they’re applying for asylum or any other form of fear-based protection.” White described one couple who had driven from Baltimore to Washington for a hearing. The judge appeared by video from Baltimore, while the immigrant appeared in Washington DC. White was unable to enter the courtroom to provide representation. Instead, she sat with the person’s spouse at a McDonald’s while they waited. “She’d been in this country for over 10 years, and had suffered all this hardship, and here we were sitting, waiting to see if her partner was going to come back out of that courtroom,” White said. “It’s not even absurdity anymore. It’s starting to become cruelty.” Disappeared in the detainee locator The hearings are unfolding alongside another change that immigration attorneys say is making it increasingly difficult to represent detained clients: ICE’s online detainee locator system is no longer reliably disclosing the whereabouts of some people with final deportation orders. Those with final orders of removal waiting for travel documents may not appear in the detainee locator. Moreover, the ICE detainee locator has not listed the US among its drop-down list of countries of origin. Theoretically, ICE would not detain US citizens. But a ProPublica investigation released Oct. 6 found that 506 US citizens have been detained by ICE since President Donald Trump took office. 70 of them were children. 36 US citizens were detained for over a day, without the ability to contact their family or an attorney. ‘Where is my client?’ Ruby Powers, founder and managing attorney of Powers Law Group in Texas, said attorneys depend on the locator to find detained clients, communicate with them and determine where to file legal challenges. “If one of my detainees gets moved from, say, Conroe, Montgomery Processing Center, that’s Southern District. But if they get moved to El Paso, that’s Western District,” Powers said. “We can’t file a habeas if we don’t know where they’re detained.” Powers described a recent case in which a client disappeared from the locator system for several hours. She eventually learned the person was still detained — but was effectively “off the record.” “It was extremely confusing,” she said. “In fact, even the judge thought that the client was no longer detained and made a ruling based on the judge not being there. So this is basically a violation of our ability to represent our clients.” “These policies are deeply unfair, and they should frighten Americans,” said Chen. “ICE is disappearing people in the detention system. Hearings are being held in unmarked, hidden locations out of view from the public and from Congress.” “And importantly, the people being harmed are certainly not the worst of the worst. They increasingly include people who already have an application pending for legal protection, might be asylum seekers, might have a work permit, and are going through the proper application process that Congress set forth in law,” he said.

USCIS Forms Update Notice

Good afternoon, We recently updated the following USCIS form(s): Form G-1055, Fee Schedule 10/07/2026 02:06 PM EDT Edition Date: 10/07/26. You can find the edition date at the bottom of the page of Form G-1055, Fee Schedule. For more information, please visit our Forms Updates page.https://www.uscis.gov/g-1055

USCIS Forms Update Notice

Good afternoon, We recently updated the following USCIS form(s): Form G-1055, Fee Schedule 10/01/2026 10:28 AM EDT Edition Date: 10/01/26. You can find the edition date at the bottom of the page of Form G-1055, Fee Schedule. For more information, please visit our Forms Updates page.https://www.uscis.gov/g-1055.

Trump Says the Fallout From His Immigration Crackdown Has Been ‘Tough’

President Donald Trump said he struggles with finding the right balance on immigration enforcement in a rare admission Wednesday. Speaking to a largely Latino audience at the White House’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, Trump touted his administration’s hard-line deportation agenda, but said that the job weighs on him. “Frankly, it’s the hardest job I’ve had. The hardest job, because they’ll say you’re too tough or you’re too soft. Get tougher, get softer. No matter what you do, it’s always tough,” he told the audience. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests hit record highs last month as the administration continues to escalate its aggressive enforcement policies, which include mass deportations, family separations at the border and sweeping restrictions on both legal asylum processes and refugee admissions. Trending President Donald Trump Matt K. Lewis: I Almost Never Vote for Democrats. I’m Making an Exception This Year. President Donald Trump holds artist renderings of the new White House ballroom as meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. White House Renovations Dominate Trump’s Contentious Time Magazine Cover Interview President Donald Trump gestures during a State Dinner. Want Dinner With the President? Buy His Meme Coin. RFK Stadium is visible from Air Force One. D.C. Residents Push Back on RFK Stadium Master Plan Trump’s approval ratings among Hispanics have also dropped in the two years since he won a second term with new levels of support among Latino voters. Trump has seldom budged on his alarmist rhetoric against immigration from Latin American countries. After ICE agents shot two American citizens in Minneapolis during the administration’s Operation Metro Surge immigration crackdown, he showed some vulnerability. “I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough,” Trump told NBC News in February. Trump directed the withdrawal of 700 immigration agents from Minnesota following those incidents and the resulting political unrest. The president’s statements Wednesday echoed that change — but didn’t last long. He soon pivoted to his longtime claims that foreign countries are emptying prisons and mental institutions into the United States. He also returned to another recurring midterms pitch, telling the audience to “believe” he’s also on the ballot: “We lose 40% when I don’t run.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

‘Secret’ immigration courts popping up in federal buildings, observers say

McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — The Trump administration is holding secret, pop-up immigration court hearings in federal buildings that the public can’t access, and lawyers are having trouble finding detained migrants through an online system, lawyers and an Arizona lawmaker said Tuesday. Supreme Court allows quick third-country deportations as it weighs Trump policy U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, says he was initially denied entry into a FEMA building last week in Washington, D.C., where “pop-up” immigration courts are now being held. He says a day later, once he finally was admitted, the court was empty and he said not one person on the docket showed up for their hearing. During a virtual call with reporters on Tuesday, Stanton said the use of the FEMA facility — during hurricane season — is not appropriate for immigration court proceedings. He said that all immigration court proceedings should be open to the public, and easy to locate. “Access to a court of law, and it shouldn’t have to be a member of Congress – any American citizen should have access to the American judicial system. But I was told that the impromptu court that was set up inside the FEMA building was not allowing people to enter. That’s wrong. That’s illegal,” Stanton said. Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship lifts off in first orbit of Earth Stanton is ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management. That’s why he said he learned of the use of Federal Emergency Management Agency facilities for immigration courts. “There is no signage, no indication at all that a bank of offices and a conference room that’s set aside, no indication at all of what’s happening behind that door. No indication that that is now a courtroom set up for immigration hearings,” Stanton said. Play VideoPhiladelphia nun helps migrants on South Texas border Philadelphia nun gives immigrants hope when they’re due in court He said another pop-up court is being operated on the third floor of a building used by the Department of Homeland Security in New York City. Stanton says that he and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, the ranking member for the House Judiciary Committee, have sent a letter to the Department of Justice against operating these pop-up courts. Stanton says he also supports legislation that would remove the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees immigration proceedings, from under the control of the Justice Department. Ancient geoglyph damaged by border wall contractors, archaeologists say Kel White, of the Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit that provides free legal aid to migrants, says “people are not showing up because they can’t find the courts.” She says she was also denied access to one of these courtrooms to represent a client. “A court system needs to facilitate attendance not confusion,” White said. Greg Chen, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says the new immigration courts are “happening in secret.” In a policy brief released Monday, AILA says: “People are receiving late or no notice of the changes in locations to these new facilities. Some are not even marked as courts, making it difficult for people to find their hearing locations.” Chen also said that an Online Detainee Locator System operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “no longer disclosing information and whereabouts” regarding detained migrants, making it hard for immigration lawyers to find their clients. “Dramatic policy changes are creating chaos, threatening due process and are making significant impacts on peoples’ lives and are happening in secret,” Chen said. Chen said the new pop-up courts started in September and “are not listed as courts and are run by DHS rather than the court system and largely blocked off from transparency and observation.” Chen also said that an Online Detainee Locator System, operated by CBP is secretly “disappearing” migrants and they can’t find them in the system. “ICE is no longer disclosing informatin and whereabouts on people it has detained,” Chen said. “This is causing fear among families trying to locate their loved ones who are detained, and it’s also interfering with these peoples’ right to have their attorneys represent them and be in touch with them.” An EOIR spokeswoman told The City Reporter, a non-profit local news organization based in New York City, that the agency is “making scheduling adjustments, to include opening new hearing locations as needed, to ensure all cases are handled in a timely and lawful manner.” The spokeswoman also said agency is allowed to close off immigration courtrooms “at any time.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.