{"id":182019,"date":"2026-04-01T11:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T11:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/182019\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T11:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T11:32:09","slug":"uscis-policy-changes-impact-new-yorks-employers-and-immigrant-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/182019\/","title":{"rendered":"USCIS policy changes impact New York’s employers and immigrant services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/p>\n

USCIS pauses adjudication for applicants from 19 countries
\nCatholic Charities serves 5,000 immigrants annually in new york
\nEmployers face backlogs and compliance challenges under new policies<\/p>\n

Three experts on immigration issues recently discussed changes in federal government policies affecting employers and non-profit service providers during a Virtual Panel Discussion presented by the Daily Record and the Rochester Business Journal.<\/p>\n

The virtual panel was sponsored by Catholic Charities Family and Community Services, Harter Secrest and Emery LLP, and Phillips Lytle LLP.<\/p>\n

Panelists included Susanne C. Heubel, senior counsel at Harter Secrest and Emery, Jim Morris, vice president of family prosperity programs for Catholic Charities Family and Community Services, and Danielle Rizzo, partner at Phillips Lytle.<\/p>\n

For Rizzo, the most significant change to immigration policy currently affecting employers is the pause on adjudication of applications for immigration benefits for individuals who were born in, or are citizens of, 19 specific countries.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Danielle Rizzo<\/p>\n

\u201cIndividuals who are subject to that adjudication pause can still file benefits applications, but they\u2019re just not going to be given a final decision on them until the adjudication pause is lifted. And we have no idea when that\u2019s going to be,\u201d Rizzo said.<\/p>\n

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) also announced that they are reviewing previously approved benefits applications for those individuals dating back to January of 2021, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a much stronger focus on immigration enforcement,\u201d Rizzo said.<\/p>\n

There is now an equal focus on enforcement and adjudications delays to the disadvantage of those people fearing that they\u2019re going to get deported, Heubel said.<\/p>\n

Morris said it\u2019s not one policy change that is particularly challenging, \u201cbut the totality of these changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exceptionally difficult for immigration law professionals to keep up with all the policy changes, executive orders, regulatory changes, directives that were implemented, then challenged in court, and temporarily stayed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Catholic Charities has been serving the immigrant community more than 100 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur work focuses on serving refugees and others that are here in our community under humanitarian entry programs. And this includes refugees\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Jim Morris<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are immigrants who were forced to flee their country due to a well-founded fear of persecution, based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Afghans with special immigrant visas (SIV) are another large group that Catholic Charities helps. Those Afghans that assisted the U.S. government or the military were in danger of retribution from the Taliban.<\/p>\n

Catholic Charities also serves Ukrainians who came to the United States under the U4U (United for Ukraine) program \u2014 People fleeing the war in Ukraine who are sponsored by relatives already here.<\/p>\n

Catholic Charities also helps asylees and asylum seekers looking to be admitted under the same grounds as refugees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major difference being that refugees have their claim adjudicated through a long overseas vetting process, while asylees make their persecution claim at the border, and then have their claim adjudicated in an immigration court here in the States,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

Through all the programs, Catholic Charities serves about 5,000 individuals a year.<\/p>\n

For businesses, new immigration policies are shaping workforce planning, especially for potential international employees.<\/p>\n

\"Susanne\"SusanneSusanne C. Heubel<\/p>\n

\u201cFor employers, we\u2019re seeing a slight drop in immigration cases, based on industry,\u201d Heubel said.<\/p>\n

Higher education institutions have been \u201cscared away\u201d by funding cuts which has led to a decline in the interest in finding foreign nationals to fill these roles,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t really seen a drop-off in the demand yet, but I have seen a lot of fear,\u201d Rizzo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing huge backlogs with USCIS (U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services) processing times, and that\u2019s really affecting people,\u201d Rizzo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou combine those lengthy processing times with some of the new policies that have been put into place, and it really makes things difficult for employers to plan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When businesses don\u2019t have an option, and they can\u2019t get things resolved for the person they hoped to employ, the foreign national might have to go back to their home country, and the position will be open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been seeing some more job postings where employers are trying to put a little bit of a wall up where they\u2019re saying we\u2019re not going to do any immigration sponsorship,\u201d Rizzo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, that\u2019s a sign they are already giving an external indication that if you\u2019re not a U.S. citizen, or a green card holder, or a U.S. worker in general, you shouldn\u2019t even apply, which is really a scary development,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rizzo said a growing trend is for employers to employ people working remotely overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there isn\u2019t a solution for them, and they\u2019ve already been doing the job, and they\u2019re a known quantity to the employer, they\u2019re just sending them to Mexico or India, or wherever they came from, and they\u2019re working from there,\u201d Rizzo said.<\/p>\n

But that leads to other problems. Employers must be aware of tax and payroll implications. Many countries have rules that the U.S. employer might become subject to foreign tax and employment laws, Heubel pointed out.<\/p>\n

Morris said he\u2019s starting to see vacancies have an impact on certain industries \u2014 agriculture, healthcare, elder care facilities, and trucking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s been something like 9,500 truckers that have been pulled off of the roads over the last couple months as DHS cracks down on immigrant drivers,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think 17% of the overall trucking labor force is foreign-born,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The new policies demand focus on compliance issues. Employers with workers who may have crossed the border illegally, but now have some kind of refugee status, might not show up to work because it\u2019s very possible that they get picked up by ICE, Heubel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore you hire somebody, you have to make sure that they\u2019re work authorized, and you have to track that, going forward in the future,\u201d Heubel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you constantly have to re-verify their employment authorization, you have to make a much larger effort than in the past to keep on top of whether the person even remains work authorized, precisely because the government is constantly changing, what programs remain in place,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

[email\u00a0protected]<\/a> \/ (585) 232-2035<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Summary: USCIS pauses adjudication for applicants from 19 countries Catholic Charities serves 5,000 immigrants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-182019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}