The Next Circle of the Deportation Machine - How Trump’s Administration Is Now Targeting Green Card Holders

The Trump administration is expanding its deportation policy to people who have long been living legally in the United States. It is no longer only undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, or people with temporary protected status who are being targeted. The Department of Homeland Security is now systematically reexamining green card holders as well - people with permanent residency who in many cases have lived in the United States for years or even decades, working, paying taxes, and raising families.

According to internal data in our possession, a special unit has been created inside U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for exactly that purpose. Its mission is to reexamine thousands of green card cases and determine whether those affected could lose their status and be deported. As of May 7, approximately 2,890 cases had either been reviewed or were still under review. In roughly 80 percent of cases, the agency found no further action necessary. More than 500 cases remained active. In at least 50 cases, the administration already appears to be pursuing deportation.

The numbers reveal two things at once. On one hand, the share of cases so far considered potentially deportable remains relatively small. On the other hand, the very existence of this new unit shows just how far the Trump administration is now willing to go. A legal status once considered largely stable is now being actively reopened and challenged. An immigration agency that is supposed to process applications, manage family cases, and oversee lawful residency is increasingly turning into a control apparatus aimed at people who were already legally admitted.

Officially, the administration justifies the move by claiming screening procedures under Joe Biden were too lax. USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler stated that the agency must protect America and thoroughly vet foreign nationals. According to him, the reviews involve people accused or convicted of crimes including sexual assault, domestic violence, driving under the influence, or drug paraphernalia offenses. The agency also points to alleged fraud in obtaining residency status and a small number of cases involving supposed links to organizations accused of illegally procuring technology for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. For the most part - and it has to be said this bluntly - these are fabricated allegations or supposed offenses. We ourselves were able today to secure the release of two people from detention where the accusations were not only entirely fabricated, but where the court itself concluded that the individuals involved had done absolutely nothing wrong.

And this is exactly where the doubts begin. If after reviewing nearly 3,000 cases only around two percent are even considered potentially deportable, the question arises why an already overwhelmed agency should now be tasked with reviewing tens of thousands of additional green card holders. USCIS recently had more than eleven million pending immigration applications across various procedures. That backlog has roughly doubled since the end of 2019. While families, workers, asylum seekers, and citizenship applicants wait months or years, officers are now being assigned to reopen and challenge residency rights that had already been approved.

Internally, the new structure carries a revealing name. In internal documents, the responsible division is described as the “Tactical Operations Division.” It includes units focused on green card cases, denaturalization proceedings, and renewed refugee screenings. Director Daniel Andrade referred to the green card unit in an email as an “LPR removal apparatus” - in other words, a deportation apparatus for lawful permanent residents. Around 40 immigration officers are reportedly assigned to the effort.

That transforms what was once a narrow legal measure into a political program. Green card holders could always be deported for committing serious crimes or obtaining their status through fraud. Murder, drug trafficking, or major violent crimes could previously lead to loss of residency rights. But normally, legal status was not proactively and systematically reopened on a mass scale. Criminal records were usually examined only when someone applied for renewal, citizenship, or another immigration benefit.

Now the logic is reversing itself. The agency is no longer merely waiting for new applications. It is actively searching for reasons to remove people who already possess lawful residency rights. That is what makes this development so dangerous. The moment the state begins broadly reexamining legally granted residency rights, millions of people begin feeling that no legal status is truly secure anymore.

Over recent months, the Trump administration has already attempted to target refugee protections, DACA recipients, people with temporary protected status, and even naturalized U.S. citizens. DACA recipients are individuals brought into the United States as children without personal choice who received protection from deportation and work authorization through a program created during the Obama administration. The new green card unit fits directly into that broader pattern. This is no longer simply about border policy. It is about a systematic restructuring of immigration law itself - backward, against already granted rights, against lives that have already been built.

For those affected, this does not automatically mean immediate deportation. Green card holders generally have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge. But the review process alone can destabilize entire lives. Anyone suddenly learning that their case is being reopened after years or decades lives with fear of detention, court proceedings, job loss, and family separation.

Former officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations are therefore openly questioning whether this effort is even responsible. Sarah Pierce, a former USCIS analyst now working at Third Way, points to the agency’s massive backlog. Sharvari Dalal-Dheini of the American Immigration Lawyers Association describes the new focus on reopening cases as something that has never previously existed at this level of intensity.

The message being sent to immigrants is therefore unmistakable. Anyone holding a green card today is no longer supposed to assume that status guarantees lasting protection. The Trump administration increasingly treats even lawful residency as something temporary, reviewable, revocable. For millions of people who long ago made America the center of their lives, that is the next step in a policy that no longer simply deports people - but makes security itself insecure.

To be continued .....