Trump Targets Immigration Attorneys Over False Asylum Claims (1)

The Trump administration is directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys to combat fraudulent asylum claims by targeting lawyers accused of filing false applications in immigration court, according to a Department of Homeland Security directive.

The guidance released Tuesday instructs ICE to develop anti-fraud policies under a federal law governing immigration document fraud, giving agency attorneys broader authority to pursue penalties against migrants and their legal representatives.

“For many years, millions of illegal aliens have committed fraud in our immigration system. No place is this more rampant than in immigration court,” DHS General Counsel James Percival said in a statement announcing the policy.

The directive is the latest step in President Donald Trump’s broader immigration crackdown and reflects the administration’s growing scrutiny of asylum claims and the lawyers who file them.

DHS said the policy builds on a March 2025 presidential memorandum accusing immigration attorneys and large law firms of coaching migrants to conceal information or lie to obtain asylum protections.

The administration has increasingly argued the asylum system is being abused by migrants seeking to avoid deportation as immigration courts continue to face major backlogs.

Victoria Slatton, an immigration attorney and former asylum officer at DHS, said fraud in the asylum system exists and should be addressed, but cautioned that the administration’s memo was vague and could create fear among attorneys handling legitimate cases.

“There’s a difference between a weak case, a frivolous claim and a fraudulent claim,” Slatton said.

Slatton said some attorneys do exploit the system, though she disputed the administration’s characterization that the problem is widespread. She also questioned how the administration would distinguish between weak asylum claims and intentionally fraudulent ones, saying the memo lacked specifics about how the policy would be enforced.

“I fear that the whole reason for this memo going out is to intimidate attorneys like me who have legitimate claims,” she said.

Heather Hogan, policy and practice counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a former asylum officer, said fraud in the asylum system often originates abroad through organized criminal networks rather than US-based immigration attorneys. “The fraud tends to start there,” Hogan said, referring to migrants’ home countries.

“It starts with people who organize. They have criminal rings, basically.” Hogan said most immigration lawyers are highly aware of professional ethics rules and avoid taking cases they believe are fraudulent.

Jennifer Bade, founder of the Bade Law Group, said the DHS announcement appeared to rely on existing law rather than introducing new authorities.

“This is already law. This is not new,” Bade said, referring to the federal statute cited in the DHS directive. Bade also criticized the lack of detail in the announcement.

“It’s incredibly vague,” Bade said. “I would love to know what their anti-fraud policies are.”

DHS didn’t provide details on how the new policy would work in practice or how often ICE has used those authorities in the past.