Overview
- On Tuesday, May 26, DHS General Counsel James Percival directed ICE lawyers to develop “anti-fraud” policies that explicitly include enforcement against immigration attorneys who file alleged false asylum claims.
- The memo instructs use of the civil document-fraud statute 8 U.S.C. §1324c(d), which allows notice-of-intent-to-fine charges, per-document penalties up to several thousand dollars, and cease-and-desist orders.
- The directive does not create new criminal penalties but signals a planned increase in administrative actions and referrals to disciplinary authorities while requiring separation between fraud prosecutors and litigators on the same cases.
- Immigration groups and lawyers warn the policy could create a chilling effect that discourages counsel from taking asylum cases, a concern sharpened by conflicting evidence about how common asylum fraud actually is.
- Watch for a rise in administrative fraud filings, attorney disciplinary referrals, any criminal prosecutions that follow, and legal challenges that could shape how aggressively ICE applies the policy and how it affects court backlogs and access to counsel.