Anew interpretation of immigration law has upended protections for children of long-waiting green card applicants, putting some 200,000 young people—many of whom have spent their entire lives in the U.S.—at risk of losing their legal status once they turn 21.
The change to the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) undoes a Biden-era policy that had shielded thousands of children from “aging out” of green card eligibility, and represents a seismic alteration for children on immigrant families holding H-1B visas.
Why It Matters
The rollback isn’t just a technical tweak to visa calculations—it could decide whether thousands of children stay with their families or are forced to leave the only country they’ve ever known.
The impact will fall hardest on families of H-1B visa holders stuck in the green card backlog. About 200,000 children—mostly from India and China—risk “aging out” when they turn 21, losing dependent status and facing a future of student visas, self-deportation, or exile. For families who have already waited decades, the change highlights both the fragility of existing protections and the broader failures of America’s immigration system to keep families together.
What To Know
The new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) rule officially took effect on August 15. From that date forward, only the Final Action Dates chart from the Visa Bulletin will determine a child’s CSPA age.
Families that submit adjustment of status applications before that date will still be protected under the more flexible February 2023 policy, which allowed children to rely on the earlier “Dates for Filing” chart. Those who wait beyond the deadline risk seeing their children age out much faster under the new calculation system.
In practical terms, families who delay filing until after mid-August may lose the protective cushion that previously gave them more time before their children turned 21.
The New Changes and What They Mean
The 2023 policy let families use the Dates for Filing chart to lock in a child’s CSPA age. This gave families valuable time and allowed more children to remain eligible as dependents, even amid long visa backlogs.
Immigration lawer, Carolyn Lee said: “The 2023 policy was an expansive move by USCIS to allow children to stop aging earlier. That is, to be given a broader avenue to remain under 21. However, this move raised other questions because it did not conform with U.S. State Department’s adoption of the “stop aging” point – or “visa availability.” So, the new policy, while snapping back to the less expansive position, aligns with State’s and eliminates confusion in this regard.”
Lee added: “The real problem is that dependents still can get separated from their parents during the lengthy visa adjudication process. Our immigration laws embrace family unity as a public goal, and so while we’re thankful to have CSPA, when faced with clients who face the very difficult outcome of being separated from their little ones, I do wonder whether we can look at this problem through a different lens and come up with a better solution.”
Advocates praised the 2023 policy as fairer, but critics said it conflicted with the State Department’s rules. With the new policy, USCIS is now reverting to Final Action Dates, aligning policies but narrowing protections. Eligibility will now hinge solely on this, and the change could accelerate the point at which children “age out” by turning 21 before receiving their green card.
The result is less flexibility for families, has higher risks for children, and potentially devastating consequences for those who have spent years—sometimes decades—waiting in line for permanent residency.
What Is the CSPA?
The Child Status Protection Act, passed in 2002, was designed precisely to shield families from bureaucratic delays.
Its goal was to allow children to retain eligibility despite the often yearslong wait between filing and approval.
The law calculates a “CSPA age” that subtracts certain delays from a child’s actual age, sometimes keeping them under the age of 21 even after their actual twenty-first birthday passes.
The law, however, leaves room for interpretation, especially around what counts as a “visa availability date.”
Without congressional reform of green card quotas, experts warn that children will continue facing the risk of aging out.
What People Are Saying
USCIS, in an August 8 alert detailing changes to the CSPA, said: “The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) defines a child as a person who is both unmarried and under 21 years old. If an alien applies for lawful permanent resident (LPR) status as a child but turns 21 before being approved for LPR status (also known as getting a Green Card), that alien can no longer be considered a child for immigration purposes.
It added: “This situation is commonly referred to as aging out, and may mean these aliens must file a new petition or application or wait even longer to get a Green Card, or are no longer eligible for a Green Card.”
Immigration lawer, Carolyn Lee told Newsweek via email on August 26 “The Child Status Protection Act is an important ameliorative law [something that improves a situation or reduces harm] that recognizes that delays in U.S. immigration processing can separate parents from their children and addresses that heartbreaking problem. It does so by providing a mechanism—a formula, really—that in its operation may keep children under 21 and thereby retain their derivative status.
What Happens Next
USCIS will open a formal rulemaking process later in 2025, inviting public comments that advocates and families are expected to use to push back against the policy. Legal challenges are also possible, as courts may be asked to decide whether the stricter interpretation conflicts with the CSPA’s purpose of keeping families together.
In the meantime, lawyers are urging families to act fast and document extraordinary circumstances to protect eligibility.
https://newsweek.com/child-protections-green-card-applicants-reversed-what-know-2119952
A big change to all the “cheap goods” Americans order just went into effect.
For nearly a century, low-value packages of goods from abroad have entered the United States duty free, thanks to what’s known as the “de minimis rule,” which as of 2015 has applied to packages worth less than $800.
The loophole has reshaped the way countless Americans shop, enabling many small businesses globally to sell goods to US consumers with relative ease and allowing, in particular, ultra-low-cost Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein, Temu and AliExpress to sell everything from clothing to furniture to electronics directly to American shoppers, escaping many duties in place for packages exceeding the $800 threshold.
But those days are over. As of one minute past midnight Eastern Time, all imported goods — regardless of their value — are now subject to 10% to 50% tariff rates, depending on their country of origin. (In certain cases, they could face a flat fee of $80 to $200, but only for the next six months.)
A headache for delivery services
Ahead of the expiration of the de minimis rule, a slew of delivery services across Europe, as well as Japan, Australia, Taiwan and Mexico suspended deliveries to the United States, citing logistical compliance challenges.
International shipper UPS, meanwhile, said in a statement to CNN Thursday: “We stand ready for the new changes and do not anticipate any backlogs or delays.”
DHL, which suspended service for standard parcel shipments from Germany but is continuing to ship international packages to the United States from all other countries it serves, told CNN that shipments “may experience delays during the transitional period as all parties adjust to the changes in tariff policy and regulation.”
The United States Postal Service and FedEx declined to comment on whether customers should anticipate delays.
“Our systems are fully programmed and equipped to support the seamless implementation of these changes. CBP has prepared extensively for this transition and stands ready with a comprehensive strategy, having provided clear and timely guidance to supply chain partners, including foreign postal operators, carriers, and qualified third parties to ensure compliance with the new rules.
Susan Thomas, the acting executive assistant commissioner for Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Trade, told CNN in a statement that the agency’s systems “are fully programmed and equipped to support the seamless implementation of these changes.”
“CBP has prepared extensively for this transition and stands ready with a comprehensive strategy, having provided clear and timely guidance to supply chain partners, including foreign postal operators, carriers, and qualified third parties to ensure compliance with the new rules,” she said.
A potential benefit for some American small businesses
While some small businesses, like some individual consumers, have benefited from the de minimis exemption by purchasing goods duty-free, the end of the exemption may benefit some, too.
For Steve Raderstorf, co-owner of Scrub Identity, which sells scrubs and other medical apparel at two stores located in Indianapolis, the tariff change will “level the playing field” for him and, he believes, other small business owners, he said.
A 2023 report by Coalition for a Prosperous America, a group that advocates for US producers and manufacturers, estimates that e-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart took in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue in 2022 through their networks of third-party sellers who took advantage of the loophole.
Raderstorf said almost all the goods he sells are imported. But as a small business, he doesn’t have the ability to set up a third-party network to tap into the exemption. Instead, his imported goods are all subject to applicable tariffs.
Additionally, many of the foreign manufacturers from whom he purchases goods in bulk in order to get a better price have benefited from de minimis by setting up sites to sell directly to people who could have otherwise shopped at his stores.
With de minimis gone, he feels small businesses have a better chance to compete more fairly with mega retailers and also support their local communities more.
“When somebody comes to my door and they want me to support the local football team or baseball team, I have money to do that then, and then it gets back into the community,” he told CNN. “When it goes to China, it never, ever stays in the United States — it’s gone for good.”
Since the de minimis exemption was closed for China and Hong Kong, CBP has seen packages that would have otherwise qualified for duty-free status go down from an average of 4 million a day to 1 million, White House officials told reporters Thursday.
Raderstorf is empathetic to Americans who are concerned about the increased cost of goods — but at the same time, he’s hopeful it’s “going to push them back out into their communities to meet their local retailers.”
Trump cabinet officials told a federal appeals court that ruling president’s global tariffs illegal would seriously harm US foreign policy, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning of “dangerous diplomatic embarrassment.”
The administration on Friday filed statements by Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The court is expected to decide soon whether President Donald Trump exceeded his authority to impose tariffs under a 1977 emergency powers law.
Bessent, Lutnick and Rubio’s statements were filed in support of a request that any ruling against the administration be immediately put on hold until the US Supreme Court issues a final decision. Failing to do so would have “devastating and dire consequences,” Lutnick said.
During July 31 oral arguments before the Federal Circuit, the administration’s claims of broad tariff power were met with skepticism, suggesting the judges might side with separate challenges filed by a group of small businesses and a coalition of Democratic-led states. Friday’s filing seems to suggest the administration is worried about precisely that outcome.
The cabinet secretaries said that a ruling invalidating tariffs would undo months of negotiations with the European Union, Japan, South Korea and other nations. Bessent said the president’s ability to quickly impose tariffs had prevented other nation’s from responding in kind.
“Suspending the effectiveness of the tariffs would expose the United States to the risk of retaliation by other countries based on a perception that the United States lacks the capacity to respond rapidly to retaliation,” the Treasury secretary said.
Trump’s tariffs were ruled illegal in May by the US Court of International Trade, which found that tariff power belongs to Congress and Trump improperly claimed authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That decision was put on hold by the Federal Circuit for the appeal, allowing the administration to continue threatening tariffs during the negotiations cited by Bessent, Lutnick and Rubio.
Lutnick said tariffs had brought foreign powers to the negotiating table “in ways that no other president came close to achieving” and told the court that an adverse ruling would “send a signal to the world that the United States lacks the resolve to defend its own economic and national security.”
Rubio said Trump used his IEEPA authority in connection with highly sensitive negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine and claimed there could be “severe consequences for ongoing peace negotiations and human rights abuses” if the court ruled against the administration.
Gavin Newsom warned the country is on the precipice of tipping into authoritarianism, predicting that President Donald Trump does not want to leave office after his term ends and accusing federal immigration officials of acting as “the largest private police force in history.”
The California governor, speaking at POLITICO’s “The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit” on Wednesday, repeatedly urged the audience to “wake up” to dangers he said are posed by the president. He cast Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as Border Patrol agents, as acting in Trump’s interests instead of the general public.
“When they’re done with this — all that funding and that ‘big beautiful betrayal’ allows more resources for this private police force that increasingly is showing a tendency not to swear an oath to the Constitution, but to the president of the United States,” Newsom said.
Newsom — stating that “the rule of law is being replaced by the rule of Don” — predicted the federal agents would be sent to voting booths and polling places across the country. But he later questioned whether there would be future democratic elections at all.
“I don’t think Donald Trump wants another election,” he said, adding he has two dozen “Trump 2028″ hats sent to him by the president’s supporters. He suggested that people dismissing talk of a third term were naive.
Newsom described a moment during his 90-minute Oval Office meeting with Trump in February when the president pointed to a painting of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt — which he interpreted as a nod to Trump’s desire to serve a third term.
Trump said this month he would “probably not” run for a third term, which would be in violation of the Constitution.
Newsom, a likely 2028 candidate, struck an angry and pugilistic tone throughout his interview as he implored Democrats to be more assertive and “stand tall” against Trump. He repeated a piece of advice that he said he once heard from former President Bill Clinton on the rise of American populism: “‘Given the choice, the American people always support strong and wrong versus weak or not,’” Newsom recalled. “And I think our party needs to wake up.”
“We’re losing this country in real time,” he said. “It’s not bloviation, not exaggeration. It’s happening.”
Newsom himself has recently embraced a more aggressive approach on social media, mocking Trump and Republicans through his personal and press office accounts on X. He said he’s pulling few punches on that front as his team deploys more satirical memes and splashy AI-generated content.
“We have a ‘Kill Switch,’” Newsom said, responding to a question about whether he approves the posts. The governor added that he’s killing “less every day,” prompting laughter from the audience.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/27/newsom-donald-trump-another-election-00532972
The Trump administration wants to use a Navy base north of Chicago as a launchpad for federal law enforcement activity against undocumented immigration, defense officials said Tuesday, as the White House contemplates also deploying thousands of U.S. troops to the nation’s third-largest city amid rising tension with the Illinois governor.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/08/27/trump-chicago-ice-military
A manager at a McDonald’s outlet in New York was detained by immigration authorities earlier this week, despite reportedly holding a valid U.S. work visa and just before the restaurant’s annual company picnic.
Christian Rodriguez, who has worked at the branch in Oceanside, Long Island, for several years, reportedly possesses a Social Security number, according to Newsday.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told Newsweek: “Christian Emmanuel Rodriguez Torrealba, a criminal illegal alien from Venezuela, entered the U.S. on a B-2 tourist visa that required him to leave the U.S. by June 3, 2016. Nearly 10 years later, he is still illegally in the U.S. Rodriguez’s criminal history includes convictions for battery and property damage crimes. ICE arrested this illegal alien on August 21, 2025.
“President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [of Homeland Security Kristi] Noem have been clear: criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States.”
Newsweek has contacted McDonald’s for comment.
Why It Matters
President Donald Trump has directed his administration to remove millions of migrants without legal status to fulfill his campaign pledge of mass deportation. The White House has maintained that anyone living in the country unlawfully is considered to be a criminal by the incumbent administration.
What To Know
A co-worker who requested anonymity told Newsday that Rodriguez taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after attending a hearing regarding his immigration application, in Bethpage, New York, on August 21, according to the outlet.
He had previously appeared at another hearing on August 7, which colleagues believed went favorably, the outlet reported.
On the day of the second hearing, at around 2 p.m.—the time he was expected at a company picnic—Rodriguez sent a text to a co-worker saying his application had been denied and that ICE had arrested him, per the outlet.
Rodriguez was transported to Central Islip, where ICE appears to be taking detainees to the federal courthouse, according to Newsday.
A resident of the neighboring town of Baldwin, Rodriguez came to the United States in December 2015 on a tourist visa, per the outlet, which reported that Rodriguez’s immigration “notice to appear” stated that he faced possible removal from the United States for staying past the period permitted on his tourist visa.
Concerns have been raised over the economic impacts of the president’s mass removal policy. Immigrants, documented or undocumented, made up 20 percent of U.S. workers at the beginning of the year, but by June that share had fallen to 19 percent, a decrease of more than 750,000 workers, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
What Happens Next
Rodriguez will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.
https://www.newsweek.com/manager-arrested-ice-immigration-agents-company-picnic-2120819
Donald Trump just made a “legally debated” move that will put us on the course toward a shut down next month, according to political experts.
The conservative New York Post reported in a “midnight scoop” that Trump had scrapped $5 billion in foreign aid in a “rare” action called a “pocket rescission.” According to Post reporter Steven Nelson, it is a “legally debated maneuver that hasn’t been used in 48 years.”
“President Trump is moving to cancel nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid and peacekeeping spending in a rare ‘pocket rescission,’ The Post has learned — making use of a legally debated maneuver that hasn’t been done in 48 years,” Nelson reported. “Trump on Thursday night notified Congress of his request to cancel the funds, which had been tied up in a court case until earlier in the day.”
The report notes, “A pocket rescission is a request that’s presented to Congress so late in the fiscal year — which ends Sept. 30 — that it’s made regardless of whether Congress acts.”
But reporters were quick to sound an alarm.
Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman flagged the news over night going into Friday, saying, “This would be the first step toward a shutdown next month.”
Co-founder John Bresnahan agreed, writing, “This could very well lead to a shutdown.”
One X user, District of Aluminum, added, “Vainglorious Russ Vought has decided to jeopardize a government shutdown with a $5 Billion ‘Pocket Rescission’ of foreign aid. He should have worked with Congress through appropriations. The villainy lies in his certainty that he alone knows the soul of America.”
https://www.rawstory.com/legally-debated-trump-shutdown-rescission
A federal judge has prohibited the Trump administration from dismissing Voice of America director Michael Abramowitz, handing President Donald Trump a defeat in his effort to dismantle the government-run and federally funded international news organization.
In his ruling Thursday, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of D.C. stated that the Trump administration cannot fire Abramowitz without approval of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board.
“The applicable statutory requirements could not be clearer: the director of Voice of America ‘may only be removed if such action has been approved by a majority of the vote,'” Lamberth wrote.
“There is no longer a question of whether the termination was unlawful.”
Trump has sought to dismantle Voice of America, a decades-old soft-power tool for the United States that broadcasts news internationally, since returning to the White House in January, stating the broadcaster creates anti-Trump and “radical propaganda.”
On taking office, Trump fired six of the seven International Broadcasting Advisory Board members, and then in March placed Abramowitz and 1,300 other Voice of American employees on administrative leave.
On July 8, the U.S. Agency for Global Media informed Abramowitz that he was being reassigned as chief management officer to Greenville, N.C., and if he did not accept the position, he would be fired.
Before the end of the month, Abramowitz sued.
Then on Aug. 1, USAGM sent Abramowitz a letter stating he would be fired effective the end of this month if he did not accept the Greenville transfer.
The government had argued before the court that Abramowitz’s claims are not valid because he has not yet been fired, and that the rule dictating advisory board approval for hiring and firing a VOA director interfered with Trump’s executive authority.
In response, Lamberth, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, countered that whether USAGM fired Abramowitz or transferred him, he would still be removed from his position without the board’s approval, and if the Trump wished to have a vote on the matter, he could replace the board members he removed.
“To the extent the Board’s current lack of quorum institutes a practical barrier to removing Abramowitz, the Broadcast Act gives the President a straightforward remedy: replacing the removed members,” he wrote.
“The defendants do not even feign that their efforts to remove Abramowitz comply with that statutory requirement. How could they, when the board has been without a quorum since January?”
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/08/29/Trump-VOA/6481756449616
