DHS Policy Targets 100,000 Refugees for Arrest & Indefinite Detention
Minneapolis, Minnesota – On February 18, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a memo directing field agents to arrest and indefinitely detain refugees who have been in the United States for more than one year but have not yet received their green cards, a policy advocates are calling unprecedented, and traumatizing.
The memo, which dramatically shifts enforcement priorities, targets an estimated 100,000 refugees already vetted for entry into the U.S. And legally residing within its borders. It hinges on a decades-old ambiguity within Section 209 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, originally intended to allow for oversight of refugees after one year, not their re-incarceration.
“This is probably one of the most unprecedented memos — introduced to impose trauma on refugees,” said Anahita Panahi, Deputy Director of Refugee Affairs at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA). Panahi, who has spent the last year responding to increasingly restrictive immigration policies under the current administration, described the memo as gratuitously cruel.
The policy reverses decades of established practice. While Section 209 allows refugees to be returned to the “custody” of immigration authorities after one year, legal precedent, including rulings from the Supreme Court, has interpreted this as a return to oversight, not detention. In 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) explicitly stated that being a refugee without a green card was not a deportable offense. Truthout reports that the government previously only incarcerated refugees in rare instances, typically involving convictions for serious crimes.
The current administration’s move comes after a significant reduction in the annual refugee admissions cap, lowered to 7,500 – a 94 percent decrease from the Biden presidency – with a disproportionate number of spots reserved for white Afrikaners from South Africa, leaving over 130,000 already-vetted refugees stranded overseas.
Holly Cooper, co-director of the immigration law clinic at the University of California-Davis School of Law, recalled successfully challenging a similar attempt by the George W. Bush administration to detain refugees following the September 11 attacks. She noted that even then, processing green card applications could seize up to three years, and the current administration has further slowed the process. “I’ve never in my 28 years of practicing immigration law seen anything this slow,” Cooper explained. “Everything is gummed up. Everything is getting rejected. It’s obstructionist. Most cases aren’t moving forward. They’re creating the alchemy for their own justification for detention.”
The policy creates a paradoxical situation for refugees who followed legal pathways to the U.S. After a year of protected status, they suddenly turn into vulnerable to arrest and detention, potentially facing “re-vetting” and the revocation of their refugee status. This echoes incidents in Minneapolis in 2025, where Somali refugees were detained under similar pretenses, and in Los Angeles, where Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders – individuals who assisted U.S. Forces in Afghanistan and face danger in their home country – were targeted. Truthout reports that a temporary restraining order secured by the International Refugee Assistance Project led to the release of over 100 refugees detained in Minneapolis.
Ghita Schwarz, litigation director at the International Refugee Assistance Project, described the memo as “lawless,” arguing it lacks legal basis and contradicts established practice. “It’s not tethered to any part of the statute or to previous practice,” she said, expressing concern over the potential for mass arrests of individuals who followed legal procedures. CHIRLA reports that attorneys are already hearing reports of refugees outside Minnesota being caught up in new enforcement sweeps.
Anahita Panahi, whose parents were refugees from Iran, emphasized the human cost of the policy. “It is completely inhumane, it is illegal,” she stated. “I do fear there is going to be mass trauma within these communities, and mass fearmongering as well. If you follow the law, you’re damned. If you don’t follow the law, you’re similarly damned.”
Immigrant rights organizations are preparing for a legal challenge to the policy, anticipating a protracted battle over its legality and ethical implications. The fate of 100,000 refugees now hangs in the balance, as the DHS policy takes effect nationwide.