Immigration & benefits changes tracker
Rules in this space change constantly — fees move, programs restructure, court rulings flip state laws — and most of what circulates about those changes is secondhand. This page is our running log of changes we have verified against official sources, newest first, each linked to the source document and to our guide that already reflects it.
Follow this tracker: RSS feed · machine-readable JSON — both regenerate automatically with every verified change.
Last verified: 2026-10-07. Most recent change logged: H.R. 1 fiscal year 2027 fee amounts now in effect: Annual Asylum Fee $105, initial work permit $570, TPS registration $520, parole $1,050, in-absentia fee $5,300. Every entry cites its official source and links to our already-updated guide.
Scheduled changes — what's coming
July 1, 2026
Germany's 45+ pension-provision thresholds reset July 1 — updated figures not yet published
Germany's pension-adequacy figures for self-employment-visa applicants aged 45+ reset every July 1. As of July 1, 2026, Berlin's immigration office still publishes the 2025 figures (€1,612.53/month for at least 12 years, or €232,204 in assets) — updated amounts have not yet been posted. Verify the current figures before applying. Our guide →
September 30, 2026
HHS may disclose TANF records to DHS for program-integrity reviews, including immigration-status checks
HHS's Administration for Children and Families says in its notice for the TANF Data system of records (System No. 09-80-0375, 91 FR 37406, June 23, 2026) that a new routine use permits disclosure of TANF records to another federal or grantee agency or entity it engages, such as DHS, to assist with program-integrity reviews that check whether TANF agencies comply with program requirements, including verifying citizenship or immigration status. An August 20, 2026 notice (91 FR 53876) set that routine use's effective date at September 30, 2026. Our guide →
October 1, 2026
EOIR filing fees rise for FY2027 (immigration-court appeals, motions, cancellation)
A final rule published August 21, 2026 (91 FR 54211) applies OBBBA's annual inflation adjustment (CPI-U +3.4%) to EOIR fees for filings on or after October 1, 2026: EOIR-26 and EOIR-29 appeals $1,060; motions to reopen/reconsider before an Immigration Judge $1,095 and before the Board $1,060 ($950 when based on a fee-free relief application); EOIR-40 and EOIR-42A $730; EOIR-42B $1,690. A separate EOIR notice of September 29, 2026 (FR 2026-19841) sets the OBBBA portion of DHS forms filed with EOIR from the same date: Annual Asylum Fee $105, I-485 $1,590, I-601 $1,100, I-821 $520 (I-589 initial fee unchanged at $100). Our guide →
January 1, 2027
Delaware's new hospital charity-care minimums take effect (SS 1 for SB 13)
Signed July 20, 2026. From January 1, 2027 Delaware hospitals must give full financial assistance at or below 300% FPL, a 75% discount to 350%, and a 50% discount to 400%; remaining provisions follow on the earlier of the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board's final-regulations notice or July 1, 2027. Our guide →
Verified changes, newest first
October 16, 2026
H.R. 1 fiscal year 2027 fee amounts now in effect: Annual Asylum Fee $105, initial work permit $570, TPS registration $520, parole $1,050, in-absentia fee $5,300
The fiscal year 2027 inflation adjustment to the fees created by H.R. 1 took effect on October 16, 2026, under three Federal Register notices published October 1, 2026 (CBP 2026-20185, 91 FR 62534; ICE 2026-20186, 91 FR 62542; DHS/USCIS 2026-20187, 91 FR 62540). USCIS requires the new amounts for requests postmarked on or after that date; the parole fee applies to grants of parole on or after it. New amounts: Annual Asylum Fee $105 (was $102); initial I-765 work permit for asylum, parole and TPS $570 (was $560); TPS registration (I-821) $520 (was $510); parole fee $1,050 (was $1,020); in-absentia removal fee and between-ports apprehension fee $5,300 (was $5,130). Unchanged: I-589 filing fee $100, I-765 renewals $280, SIJ petition $250, I-94 $24. The pages on this site that quote these fees now show the fiscal year 2027 amounts. The proposal to raise the in-absentia fee to $18,000 (FR 2026-10082) is still only proposed.
October 14, 2026
Refugee-status termination: 10 days to answer a Notice of Intent to Terminate (interim final rule)
A DHS interim final rule effective October 14, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-20956, 91 FR 65077) reduces the response period to a Notice of Intent to Terminate refugee status from thirty to ten days, for people DHS determines were not refugees at admission. An interview request must also be made within that period. Comments are accepted until November 13, 2026.
October 14, 2026
Government appeals the Diversity Visa orders in Medani v. Trump; status conference moved to October 22
On October 14, 2026 the government filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit in Medani v. Trump (N.D. Cal. No. 5:26-cv-06332) from the September 30, 2026 order and the earlier class-certification, preliminary-injunction and enforcement orders. On October 13, 2026 the court granted the government's motion for an extension of time and clarification and continued the October 15 status conference to October 22, 2026.
October 14, 2026
DHS makes the end of automatic EAD renewal extensions final
A final rule published in the Federal Register October 14, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-20955, 91 FR 65306), effective that day, responds to public comments on DHS's October 30, 2025 interim final rule (90 FR 48799) and "adopts the IFR as final without change": EAD renewal applications (Form I-765) filed on or after October 30, 2025 still receive no automatic extension of the work permit while USCIS processes them. In Jane Doe 1 et al. v. DHS (No. 8:26-cv-00060, C.D. Cal.) the September 10, 2026 preliminary injunction still covers only the seven named plaintiffs; the motion-to-dismiss hearing is set for October 26, 2026.
October 13, 2026
11th Circuit puts the government's rehearing petition on bond hearings on hold until the Supreme Court rules
On October 13, 2026 the 11th Circuit ordered that the government's petition for rehearing en banc in Hernandez Alvarez v. Warden (No. 25-14065), filed June 22, 2026, is held in abeyance pending the Supreme Court's decision in Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, No. 26-104. The 11th Circuit's May 6, 2026 decision (a bond hearing is available after an interior arrest) stays not final; its mandate has been withheld since May 13, 2026. This changes no detention rule.
October 9, 2026
DHS and EOIR finalize the civil-penalty procedure for failure to depart and unlawful entry
A final rule published in the Federal Register October 14, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-21024, 91 FR 65390) adopts the June 27, 2025 interim rule (90 FR 27439) on civil penalties for failing to depart under a voluntary departure order (INA 240B(d)), willfully failing to depart after a removal order (INA 274D) and unlawful entry (INA 275(b)). The published rule says: 'The effective date of this final rule is October 14, 2026.' DHS still imposes the penalty by written decision and order, with a 15-business-day appeal to DHS and no appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals; the one change lets ICE accept a late appeal, case by case, when a mail delay beyond the person's control caused it. The penalty amounts are not changed.
October 9, 2026
IRS cancels the October 14 hearing on the refundable-credits proposal; the proposal stands
A Federal Register notice published October 9, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-20790) cancels the public hearing that had been scheduled for October 14, 2026 on proposed regulations REG-119882-25, which would treat the refunded portion of certain refundable tax credits as a federal public benefit under PRWORA. The IRS received no requests to testify by the October 5, 2026 deadline. The notice cancels only the hearing; the proposal is not withdrawn, and as of October 9, 2026 no final rule had been published.
October 8, 2026
Fiscal Year 2027 refugee ceiling set at up to 17,500, mainly Afrikaners
Presidential Determination No. 2026-24 of September 25, 2026 (published October 2, 2026) authorizes the admission of up to 17,500 refugees in Fiscal Year 2027, allocated primarily to Afrikaners from South Africa under Executive Order 14204. It is the same number at which Fiscal Year 2026 ended. A ceiling is not a count, and the determination keeps refugee admissions subject to Executive Order 14163, which suspends refugee entry except case by case.
October 8, 2026
ICE cash-bond interest rate: 3% a year through January 31, 2027
A Treasury notice published October 5, 2026 sets the interest paid on cash deposited for ICE immigration bonds at 3% a year for October 1, 2026 through January 31, 2027. That is the legal maximum under 8 U.S.C. 1363(a). ICE pays the interest to the obligor after the bond is cancelled or breached.
October 8, 2026
Correction: Form I-485 can be filed online in family, employment and VAWA cases
Our Form I-485 guide said the green-card application did not accept online filing for most categories. USCIS's online-filing page (last reviewed October 7, 2026) lists standalone online filing for family-based, employment-based and VAWA applicants whose petition is already filed, and Form G-1055 (edition 10/07/26) lists an online fee of $1,390 against $1,440 on paper.
October 8, 2026
Proposed: $70,000 school-paid fee per F-1 student for OPT (not in effect)
DHS published a proposed rule (91 FR 64566, Docket ICEB-2026-0100) on October 8, 2026 that would require SEVP-certified schools to pay $70,000 per F-1 student before a first OPT recommendation and $30,000 for each later OPT recommendation. It is only a proposal; comments are due November 9, 2026.
October 8, 2026
Correction: removed unsupported claims that DMVs, schools, hospitals, vital-records offices, banks and consulates do not share data with ICE
Several page families stated as fact that state and local offices, hospitals, vital-records offices, banks and consulates do not share information with USCIS or ICE. No primary source supports a blanket rule, and data sharing with ICE is in active litigation. We removed the claims on 230 pages (EN+ES) and now point readers to our IRS, Medicaid and New York DMV data-sharing case pages; the hospital-care pages now quote HIPAA's actual limits and its law-enforcement disclosure path (45 CFR 164.502(a), 164.512(f)).
October 7, 2026
Birthright citizenship: Casa motion to dissolve still pending; plaintiffs opposed Sep 22; DHS comment period closed Oct 5
In Casa Inc. v. Trump, No. 8:25-cv-00201 (D. Md.), the government moved on September 8, 2026 to dissolve or stay the September 2 preliminary injunction (ECF 183); the plaintiffs filed their opposition on September 22, 2026 (ECF 188), and as of October 7, 2026 the public docket shows no ruling. The comment period on DHS's interim final rule (Docket USCIS-2026-0496) closed October 5, 2026; the rule stays in force, and as of October 7, 2026 DHS had published no final rule. A September 16, 2026 correction (FR doc 2026-18949) restored evidence rules in 8 CFR 264.2(c)(2).
October 7, 2026
Correction: the Supreme Court dismissed Genalo v. Black on September 11, 2026 — the October 13 argument on prolonged detention will not happen
Our case page said the Supreme Court would hear argument on October 13, 2026 on whether prolonged mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. 1226(c) requires a bond hearing. The case was dismissed on September 11, 2026 after the parties jointly stipulated to dismissal (the government said a New York pardon made respondent G.M.'s case moot and it would not seek vacatur of the decisions below). The same question returns in a new petition, Genalo v. D.C., No. 26-379, filed September 21, 2026.
October 5, 2026
Lawsuit filed against the USCIS adjustment-of-status memo (AAUP v. Mullin)
On October 5, 2026, unions, Americans for Immigrant Justice and six immigrants sued in the District of Massachusetts (No. 1:26-cv-14527) to block and vacate USCIS memo PM-602-0199 (May 21, 2026) and USCIS's August 5, 2026 policy on evidence requests and notices of intent to deny. The memo stays in effect unless a court blocks it. Our page said no court challenge was docketed; it is now corrected.
October 5, 2026
Civil denaturalization: DOJ announces 40 more cases filed Aug. 21–Oct. 2, 2026; no FY2026 total published yet
On Oct. 5, 2026, the Justice Department announced denaturalization actions against 40 individuals, filed between Aug. 21 and Oct. 2, 2026, which it called the largest volume of complaints submitted in a single period under the Trump administration. The release gave no cumulative or fiscal-year total; as of Oct. 7, 2026 neither DOJ nor USCIS had published an FY2026 filing total, so official sources do not yet show whether the 250 goal was met.
October 5, 2026
ICE's May 2025 memo claiming a Form I-205 alone allows home entry for people with final removal orders: paused by DHS (confirmed May 8, 2026) and challenged in court (no ruling as of Oct 5, 2026)
A May 12, 2025 memo signed by Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons ('Utilizing Form I-205, Warrant of Removal'), made public in January 2026 through a whistleblower disclosure reported by the Associated Press, says ICE may rely on a Form I-205 alone, without a judicial warrant or consent, to enter the home of a person with a final order of removal, after knocking and announcing and using 'a necessary and reasonable amount of force' if refused. On May 8, 2026 DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote that ICE 'has not rescinded the memorandum' but that he had 'paused the practice' while he assesses the policy; in a June 23, 2026 filing the government told the court the pause 'remains in effect.' The memo is challenged in Gibson Brown v. Mullin, No. 1:26-cv-01131 (D.D.C.), filed April 2, 2026; the government's motion to dismiss is pending and the court had not ruled as of October 5, 2026. Our know-your-rights and myth pages that said an administrative warrant never allows home entry now carry a dated update; the myth verdict changed from FALSE to MOSTLY FALSE with one disputed exception.
October 2, 2026
Venezuela 2023-designation TPS work permits reached their October 2, 2026 end date
EADs issued on or before February 5, 2025 with a 'Card Expires' date of October 2, 2026 were valid until that date. As of October 5, 2026 USCIS had announced no further extension. USCIS still lists a separate court-ordered automatic extension of up to 540 days for certain pending renewals received before February 6, 2025.
October 1, 2026
Diversity Visa court order: ten extra days past fiscal year 2026, paused for State Department guidance
In Medani v. Trump (N.D. Cal. No. 5:26-cv-06332), a September 30, 2026 order told the State Department to take reasonable steps for ten more days past fiscal year 2026 to reconsider Diversity Visa applications refused solely under its two pause policies. On October 1, 2026 the court temporarily stayed that order so the State Department could prepare guidance for consulates. A status conference is set for October 15, 2026.
October 1, 2026
Louisiana LLC filing fees rise: Articles of Organization $125 (from $100), annual report $35 (from $30)
Effective October 1, 2026, the Louisiana Secretary of State's Commercial Division fees increased under Act 921 of the 2026 Regular Legislative Session. The SOS fee schedule lists Articles of Organization for a Louisiana limited liability company at $125 (was $100) and annual reports at $35 (was $30).
October 1, 2026
Supreme Court agrees to decide whether people who entered without inspection and are arrested inside the U.S. must be detained without a bond hearing
On October 1, 2026 the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, No. 26-104, on whether 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(A) mandates detention during removal proceedings of people present without admission. Granting review changes no detention rule: until the Court rules, whether a bond hearing is available still depends on the circuit where the person is detained.
September 30, 2026
H.R. 1 immigration fees rise for fiscal year 2027 — Annual Asylum Fee $105, initial work permit $570, TPS registration $520, parole $1,050, in-absentia and apprehension fees $5,300 — 15 days after the October 1 publication
On September 30, 2026 DHS filed three Federal Register notices (CBP 2026-20185, ICE 2026-20186, DHS/USCIS 2026-20187) setting the fiscal year 2027 inflation adjustment for the fees created by H.R. 1 (CPI-U July 2025 to July 2026: +3.36%, rounded down to the next $10, the Annual Asylum Fee to the dollar). The notices were published in the Federal Register on October 1, 2026; the new amounts apply from October 16, 2026 (USCIS: requests postmarked on or after that date). Changes: Annual Asylum Fee $102 to $105; initial I-765 work permit for asylum, parole and TPS $560 to $570; TPS registration (I-821) $510 to $520; parole fee $1,020 to $1,050; the in-absentia removal fee and the between-ports apprehension fee $5,130 to $5,300. Unchanged: I-589 filing fee $100, I-765 renewals $280 (asylum-category renewal $275), SIJ petition $250, I-94 $24. Every page on this site that quotes one of these fees now carries a dated notice; the page amounts flip on the effective date.
September 30, 2026
ICE's online detainee locator no longer shows people with a final order of removal (since Sep 15, 2026)
According to the Associated Press and the American Immigration Council, since September 15, 2026 ICE's Online Detainee Locator omits people held with a final order of removal (more than 16,000 of nearly 69,000 detainees, per AP), and ICE staff have reportedly been told not to share their location with family or lawyers. ICE has not announced or confirmed the change. Every page on this site that points to the locator now carries a dated notice: an empty locator result does not mean a person was released.
September 30, 2026
EB-5 investor fees rise on November 30, 2026: Form I-526E to $7,850, Integrity Fund fee to $1,100, Form I-829 to $5,000
USCIS's EB-5 fee final rule (Federal Register 2026-20016, published September 30, 2026) takes effect November 30, 2026. Filings postmarked on or after that date pay $7,850 for an initial Form I-526E and $7,615 for a standalone Form I-526 (both include a $75 technology fee), a $1,100 EB-5 Integrity Fund petition fee (was $1,000), and $5,000 for Form I-829 (was $3,750). Filings postmarked through November 29, 2026 keep the current fees.
September 29, 2026
Supreme Court stays the third-country removal judgment and will hear DHS v. D.V.D. on Dec. 9
On September 29, 2026 the Supreme Court stayed the District of Massachusetts' February 25, 2026 order and judgment that had set aside DHS's third-country removal guidance, and granted certiorari (No. 26-426); Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson would have denied the stay. The First Circuit had largely affirmed that judgment on September 18 and dissolved its own stay on September 23. Argument is set for December 9, 2026. Our case page still described the case as pending at the First Circuit; it is now corrected.
September 29, 2026
Correction: property-tax pages carried a generic March deadline, a 1-5% late surcharge and, for Texas, an outdated $100,000 exemption
All 52 state property-tax pages (EN + ES) said homestead applications must generally be filed before March and that late payment costs a 1-5% surcharge in the first month; neither figure came from any state source. Those lines now point readers to the sourced table on each page and to the county assessor or tax collector. Texas is corrected to the Comptroller's figures: a $140,000 school-district homestead exemption (plus $60,000 at 65+ or disabled), a general application deadline before May 1, and, for taxes unpaid on Feb. 1, a 6% penalty plus 1% interest that reaches 12% on July 1.
September 29, 2026
Correction: hospital financial-assistance refund rule now includes its under-$5 exception
The 52 state free-hospital-care pages (EN + ES) said federal 501(r) rules require a nonprofit hospital to refund what an eligible patient paid above the discounted amount. The regulation, 26 CFR 1.501(r)-6(c)(6)(i)(C)(2), excepts an excess of less than $5 (or another amount the IRS sets in published guidance); the pages now say so.
September 29, 2026
Correction: Medicaid five-year wait outside CHIPRA 214 states keeps its other exceptions
The Medicaid guide said that in states without the CHIPRA 214 option the five-year wait applies to children and pregnant women too. CMS letter SHO #26-001 (April 8, 2026) keeps the other exceptions in 8 U.S.C. 1613(b), including Cuban/Haitian entrants, COFA migrants and LPR veterans or active-duty service members and certain family members; the sentence now names them.
September 29, 2026
Correction: skipping Selective Service registration no longer affects federal student aid
Two passages of the Selective Service guide (EN + ES) still listed federal student aid among the things failure to register can cost you, contradicting the FAQ below them. The FAFSA Simplification Act removed that requirement; Federal Student Aid's Dear Colleague Letter GEN-21-04 (June 11, 2021) says failing to register no longer affects Title IV aid eligibility. Both passages are corrected.
September 29, 2026
EOIR sets FY2027 fees for DHS forms filed in immigration court, including a $105 Annual Asylum Fee
A notice published September 29, 2026 (FR 2026-19841, 91 FR 61447) sets the fiscal year 2027 OBBBA amounts for four DHS forms when filed with the immigration courts or the Board of Immigration Appeals on or after October 1, 2026: Annual Asylum Fee $105 (from $102), I-485 $1,590 (from $1,540), I-601 $1,100 (from $1,070) and I-821 $520 (from $510); the $100 initial I-589 fee is unchanged. The notice does not change the DHS base fees for these forms, and EOIR's Payment Portal shows the combined amount. It covers EOIR filings only: USCIS had not published its own fiscal year 2027 adjustment in the Federal Register as of September 29, 2026.
September 29, 2026
SNAP FY2027 amounts take effect October 1, 2026: the maximum benefit for a family of four in the 48 states and DC rises to $1,023
USDA's FY2027 cost-of-living memo (dated August 21, 2026) sets SNAP amounts for October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. In the 48 states and DC the maximum monthly benefit for a household of four rises from $994 to $1,023 (one person $306), the gross income limit (130% of the poverty level) for one person rises to $1,729/month, and the asset limit for households with a member age 60+ or disabled rises to $4,750 (other households stay at $3,000). Alaska, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands also rise; Hawaii's maximums go DOWN (family of four $1,655, from $1,689), as the memo states. Our 104 state SNAP pages and both SNAP guides now show the new amounts, each labeled with the dates it applies.
September 28, 2026
Family Reunification Parole appeal: First Circuit orders the government to refile a conforming opening brief
The government tendered its opening brief in Doe v. Mullin, Nos. 26-1314 and 26-1628, on the September 8, 2026 due date, but the court had not accepted it for filing; on September 28 it ordered a conforming brief and appendix by October 5, and the appellees' 30 days run from service of the corrected brief. A brief was re-tendered October 2. The FRP preliminary injunction stays in effect.
September 25, 2026
Honduras consulates: addresses, phones and e-mails corrected from the Embassy of Honduras directory
The Embassy of Honduras in Washington now publishes a directory of its 19 consulates in the United States (hondurasemb.org/consulados). We re-read every office's page and corrected our 19 consulate pages: several offices have moved (the San Francisco consulate is in Oakland, Seattle's in Kent, Boston's in Chelsea, and the Dallas consulate is in Irving), and phones and e-mails changed across the network. Eight pages that said Honduras published no directory now cite it; the online appointment system still lists only 11 of the 19 offices, and the Houston consulate serves walk-ins in order of arrival. A 19th office in Kansas City (Overland Park, KS) is listed; we have no page for it yet. Peru: the Washington, D.C. office is a Consulate General, and the Orlando consulate general is listed by Peru's government with its own address.
September 25, 2026
Haiti and Syria TPS holder counts now use DHS's own figures
Our TPS pages gave two different counts for the same people: some used the National Immigration Forum's estimates (about 330,735 Haitian and 3,860 Syrian holders), while the TPS-by-country hub used DHS's. We now use DHS's own estimates everywhere, from its termination notices: about 352,959 Haitian TPS holders (90 FR 54733, Nov. 28, 2025) and 6,132 Syrian (90 FR 45398, Sept. 22, 2025), about 359,091 together. Venezuela's figure is unchanged for now because DHS's notices give different populations for different dates.
September 25, 2026
ICE 287(g) dataset refreshed: 2,559 agreements as of ICE's September 21, 2026 workbook
ICE published a September 21, 2026 edition of its 287(g) participating-agencies workbook; our pages were quoting the September 15 edition. Re-read from ICE's own workbook: 2,559 agreements (was 2,510) held by 2,193 distinct agencies across the same 40 jurisdictions (38 states plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands). By model: 185 Jail Enforcement, 1,812 Task Force, 562 Warrant Service Officer. Still 130 agreements predate February 2025, so 2,429 (95%) were signed since; Texas (538) and Florida (353) hold 34.8% of the total, and the same twelve states have none.
September 25, 2026
Immigration-court judge lists re-checked against EOIR's September 24, 2026 listing; judges now counted once each
We compared every court's judge table with EOIR's own court listing (updated September 24, 2026). Judges had moved since our last check: 62 judge listings were added and 30 removed across about 40 courts, and all 807 remote-hearing rooms were re-tested (16 did not open; those rows now point to EOIR's own list). No court closed beyond the two already noted (Batavia and San Francisco). Our legal-deserts dataset had counted a judge once per court they appear at, so an assistant chief judge who supervises several courts was counted several times; it now counts each person once. The national figure is 765 judges (was 781), and Louisiana has 25 (was 27).
September 24, 2026
Correction: since July 4, 2025, Medicare is limited to citizens, green-card holders, Cuban and Haitian entrants and COFA residents; current enrollees outside those groups lose it January 4, 2027
Our Medicare page said a lawfully present worker who is not a permanent resident (deferred action including DACA, TPS, DED) and has 40 work quarters gets premium-free Part A at 65. That reasoning from 42 U.S.C. 426(a) and 402(y) missed a later law. Section 71201 of Public Law 119-21, enacted July 4, 2025, added section 1899C to the Social Security Act: a person "may be entitled to, or enrolled for, benefits under this title only if the individual is" a citizen or national of the United States, a lawful permanent resident, a Cuban and Haitian entrant, or someone lawfully residing in the US under a Compact of Free Association. For people who were already entitled or enrolled on July 4, 2025, the limit applies beginning 18 months after enactment, which is January 4, 2027; the Commissioner of Social Security had to complete a review of those enrollees within one year of enactment and must notify each person identified that their entitlement or enrollment will end on that date. The page now quotes the statute, lists the four groups, gives the transition date, and says it describes the law text, not how the Social Security Administration is carrying out the review. The earlier September 10, 2026 correction on this page is superseded.
September 24, 2026
Form I-864: only the 08/24/26 edition is accepted from October 1, 2026, and it authorizes USCIS to pull the sponsor's credit report
As of September 24, 2026, the USCIS Form I-864 page (last updated 09/04/2026) says the 08/24/26 edition was published August 31, 2026 with a 30-day grace period for the 10/17/24 edition: "Beginning Oct. 1, 2026, we will only accept the 08/24/26 edition of Form I-864. USCIS will not process any 10/17/24 edition of Form I-864 postmarked or electronically submitted on or after Oct. 1, 2026." USCIS says it does not reject the Form I-485 itself when filed with an older I-864 edition and applies 8 CFR 103.2(b)(8) on missing initial evidence. The new edition includes a privacy release authorizing USCIS and the Department of State to request information from consumer reporting agencies, including credit reports and scores, and USCIS warns that a credit or security freeze can keep it from reading that information. Our affidavit-of-support guide now carries the edition rule, the credit release and the freeze warning. While re-reading the form instructions we also corrected the tax-return line: the instructions require an IRS transcript or a photocopy of the return for the most recent tax year, with three years optional, not three years of IRS transcripts.
September 24, 2026
Correction: the San Francisco Immigration Court closed on September 4, 2026 and its cases went to the Concord Immigration Court; our pages still showed it as open
In a notice dated May 1, 2026, EOIR announced that "the San Francisco Immigration Court will permanently close, and its Sansome Street location will become a hearing location under the administrative control of the Concord Immigration Court, at the close of business on Sept. 4, 2026," that it would issue new hearing notices to everyone whose case was reassigned to Concord, and that those cases would be heard at the Concord Immigration Court or remotely. An earlier EOIR notice (April 10, 2026) had already ended hearings at the court's Montgomery Street location on May 1, 2026. EOIR's court listing, updated September 24, 2026, shows ten California courts and no San Francisco court. Our San Francisco court page still gave the Montgomery Street address and phone as a working court, and the California court guide, three ICE field-office pages and our court dataset still counted it. The San Francisco page now explains the closure and how to confirm your current court and hearing date (your latest hearing notice, EOIR's line 1-800-898-7180, or the ACIS portal); the California guide lists 10 courts; the court dataset records San Francisco as closed; and the legal-deserts figures were recomputed (72 courts nationally, 18.2 recognized nonprofits per court).
September 24, 2026
Laredo, Winn, Diamondback and San Luis ICE facility pages now carry ICE's visiting rules, legal-access routes and latest inspection results
The pages for CoreCivic Laredo Processing Center (Texas), Winn Correctional Center (Louisiana), Diamondback Correctional Facility (Oklahoma) and San Luis Regional Detention Center (Arizona) were deepened on September 24, 2026 with specifics verified that day at each facility's ice.gov page (last updated 08/06/2026), ICE Office of Detention Oversight inspection reports from January 2026, CoreCivic's facility page for Diamondback, and EOIR's July 2026 List of Pro Bono Legal Service Providers. Newly published: each facility's family-visit schedule and visitor rules (Laredo's published windows cover only female detainees; Winn assigns days by custody level; Diamondback visits are by appointment within two one-hour blocks a week; San Luis splits days by sex), attorney, consular and clergy visiting, how legal video calls are booked (ERO eFile at Winn and Diamondback, email at San Luis), legal fax and email routes, mail formats and money-deposit routes (money orders at Laredo, cash accepted by mail at Winn, ViaPath at Diamondback, no published route at San Luis), and complaint channels. New inspection sections summarize ODO's January 2026 findings: one deficiency at Laredo (rated Good), 13 at Winn including two priority components (rated Acceptable/Adequate), and none at San Luis (rated Superior); ICE lists no inspection report for Diamondback.
September 24, 2026
Correction: ICE facility pages said the ERO field office handles check-ins, and called EOIR's main line a Board of Immigration Appeals number
151 ICE facility pages and the 24 field-office pages (EN + ES) said the ERO field office phone handles ICE check-in, supervision and reporting. ICE's field-office directory (updated Sep 2, 2026) says the field offices "are not check-in locations" and sends check-ins to ice.gov/check-in; the pages now say only that. Where ICE's own facility page and its field-office directory print different field-office numbers (48 pages, 14 offices), both numbers are now shown, each labelled with the ICE page it comes from. The number given for the Board of Immigration Appeals, (703) 305-0289, is the main line of EOIR, the Justice Department agency the BIA belongs to, as printed on EOIR's own pages; it is now labelled that way.
September 23, 2026
H.R.1 fees appeal: First Circuit moves the appellants' opening brief to October 30, 2026
On September 23, 2026 the First Circuit granted the appellants' first, unopposed request for more time in the H.R.1 fees appeal (No. 26-1893), enlarging the deadline for their brief and appendix from September 30 to October 30, 2026. The appellees' brief is due 30 days after the appellants' brief is served, and any reply 21 days after that. Nothing else changed: the H.R.1 asylum, work-permit (EAD) and TPS fees are still being collected, the nationwide stay of the rules letting USCIS reject a pending asylum application or start removal solely for non-payment of the Annual Asylum Fee still holds, and H.R.1's one-year cap on TPS-based work permits keeps operating while the appeal is briefed.
September 22, 2026
Folkston Annex and South Texas ICE Processing Center pages now carry the visiting schedules, legal-visit rules and contacts ICE publishes
The pages for the Folkston ICE Processing Center Annex (Georgia) and the South Texas ICE Processing Center (Pearsall, Texas) were deepened on September 22, 2026 with specifics verified the same day at their own ice.gov facility pages (last updated 08/20/2026 and 08/06/2026) and EOIR's July 2026 List of Pro Bono Legal Service Providers. Newly published: the family, attorney, video-call, consular and clergy visiting periods ICE lists for each facility; visitor rules (ID, arrival time, minors, what visitors may bring); the ERO eFile rules for booking legal visits and the facility contacts for urgent legal requests; legal-document fax and email routes; mail and money-deposit rules, including ICE's own contradiction at the Folkston Annex between a mail-in address for money orders and a statement that all money arriving by mail is returned to the sender; complaint channels (ICE OPR, DHS OIG); and, for South Texas, the free legal providers EOIR lists for Pearsall, Texas. Several earlier statements were corrected, including that letters to a Folkston Annex detainee need the last four digits of the A-number.
September 18, 2026
The 2022 public-charge rule's rescission took effect September 18, 2026 — only the 09/18/26 edition of Form I-485 is accepted
On September 18, 2026 the final rule rescinding the 2022 public-charge regulation (91 FR 45324) took effect, with no court order blocking it. The Policy Manual guidance USCIS published August 18, 2026 now governs (superseding the 1999 Interim Field Guidance): officers weigh five statutory factors case-by-case, and any means-tested benefit an applicant receives on or after September 18, 2026 — USCIS names cash assistance, housing assistance, food stamps, and college financial aid — can be considered. Benefits received before that date, and Forms I-485 postmarked or electronically submitted before it, are still judged under the 2022 rule. Public-charge bonds (Form I-945) returned, by USCIS invitation only. USCIS now accepts only the 09/18/26 edition of Form I-485 and rejects the 01/20/25 and 09/04/26 editions if postmarked or electronically submitted on or after September 18, 2026, with no grace period. Three lawsuits challenging the rule are pending in the Southern District of New York: one filed September 14 by New York, 20 other states, the governor of Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia (No. 1:26-cv-07978), one filed the same day by New York City and other cities and counties (No. 1:26-cv-07982), and one filed September 17 by Make the Road New York and others (No. 1:26-cv-08129), which the court accepted as related. As of September 24, 2026 no court has blocked the rule; the first conference is set for October 9, 2026.
September 17, 2026
Two ICE facility pages now carry the visiting hours, money-deposit routes, bond rules and named free legal providers ICE and EOIR publish
The pages for ERO El Paso Camp East Montana and the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center were deepened on September 17, 2026 with specifics verified the same day at their own ice.gov facility pages (last updated 08/10/2026 and 08/06/2026), ICE's CeBONDS page and EOIR's July 2026 List of Pro Bono Legal Service Providers. Newly published: the actual visiting periods (Camp East Montana is by appointment only, weekends and holidays 8 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2 p.m.-6 p.m. MT; Karnes runs 8 a.m.-6 p.m. on days assigned by housing unit, effective July 27, 2026); the mailing and money-deposit routes, including ICE's own contradiction at Karnes between a mail-in address for money orders and a statement that all money arriving by mail is returned to the sender; bond rules (CeBONDS only, Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in the detainee's time zone, Fedwire or ACH only, obligor must be a citizen, LPR, law firm or non-profit); the ERO eFile requirement for legal visits; the deportation-officer and case-information contacts; the named free legal providers for each facility's court, with the RAICES Karnes hotline and the ABA detention hotline's in-facility speed dial 2150#; and the ICE Detention Reporting and Information Line, 1-888-351-4024.
September 17, 2026
Visa wait times refreshed from the State Department page updated September 17, 2026
The Global Visa Wait Times table (243 posts) was re-read in a real browser on September 17, 2026, from the State Department page stamped 'Last updated: 17-SEP-2026', replacing the August 17 figures. Among the twelve countries this site tracks, the biggest moves were Mexico City's next B1/B2 appointment (4 to 5 months), Bogota's average B1/B2 wait (11 to 8.5 months), Tegucigalpa (7 to 5 months), Lima (7 to 8.5 months) and Guatemala City (1 to 1.5 months). The State Department blocks automated fetches, so this dataset is refreshed by hand from the rendered page.
September 17, 2026
Correction: 16 immigration-court hearing links that no longer worked now point to EOIR's own list
On September 17, 2026, all 786 Webex hearing-room links published on the immigration-court pages were re-tested against eoir.webex.com. Seventeen returned Webex's 'room not found' page; sixteen were replaced in both languages with a link to EOIR's 'Find an immigration court and access internet-based hearings' page (the judge's name and telephone access code were kept, because a dead room does not mean the judge has left), and one was a misspelling of a room that still works and now points to it. The remaining 769 links answered normally. Room links rot as judges move; they are re-tested monthly.
September 17, 2026
Correction: the DACA renewal-delays lawsuit is a records (FOIA) case, not a case that can order faster renewals
The Form I-821D renewal page described East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. USCIS (N.D. Cal. 3:26-cv-06367) as a suit 'over severe DACA renewal delays' without saying what it asks for. The docket lists its cause as 5 U.S.C. § 552 (Freedom of Information Act): it asks the court to force USCIS and ICE to release their internal records about the delays, and cannot order USCIS to adjudicate renewals faster. The page now says so, notes the stipulated scheduling order entered September 15, 2026, and rolls its 'no ruling has changed the procedure' date forward from August 17 to September 17, 2026. The practical advice is unchanged: file at day 150.
September 17, 2026
Correction: the immigration-judge, Webex and dial-in tables on every state and city court page were re-pulled from EOIR — and the Spanish pages, which had been left four months behind English, now match
Each immigration-court page carries a table of the judges sitting at that court with the judge's Webex hearing link and telephonic access code. Those tables were hand-maintained and had drifted: the English state pages were stamped "EOIR-verified" while the Spanish twins still carried the 2026-05-26 matrix, so a Spanish-speaking reader was being handed judges who had transferred months earlier. All 122 pages — 31 state pages and 30 individual court pages, in both languages — were rebuilt on September 17, 2026 from EOIR's own listing at justice.gov/eoir/eoir-immigration-court-listing: 75 courts and 792 judge rows, parsed once and written to English and Spanish in the same run, taking the state tables from 815 rows to 756. Examples of what was wrong: the Denver table listed André Carman, Jack D. Patten III, Jeremy Sibert and Jennifer C. Whitko, none of whom EOIR lists at Denver (Carman is on the Concord, California list), while Andrew Hurd and Tyler Wood, who are there, were missing; Salt Lake City listed Stephanie Arrache and James K. Glober, both now at Concord, and Joseph Q. Andelin, who is on no court's list, while Grant Pattison was missing; Honolulu listed Demetrius Cheeks, who is not there, and omitted Howard Hom, who is; Charlotte listed Ellen Karesh, who is not on EOIR's Charlotte list; the Annandale, Virginia table had 43 judges where EOIR lists 23, and the El Paso Service Processing Center table had 22 where EOIR lists 5. EOIR also no longer lists a San Francisco Immigration Court: its three judges — ACIJ Julie Nelson, Steven Kirchner and Frank Seminerio — all appear on the Concord list, and the California pages now say that instead of printing a court that no longer exists. The closed Batavia, New York court keeps its explanatory note. Thirteen judges whose EOIR-published Webex rooms no longer open keep pointing at EOIR's hearing-access page rather than at a dead room, and that decision is now carried across both languages and both page families automatically. Both languages are now rebuilt from EOIR's list in a single automated pass, so the Spanish tables can no longer fall behind the English ones.
September 17, 2026
Correction: H.R.1 is the 2025 reconciliation law, not the 2026 one
Ten passages across five English pages and their Spanish twins — the asylum annual fee, the TPS-by-country hub, the ITIN application guide and the ITIN tax-credit guide — introduced H.R.1 as "the 2026 reconciliation law". The law was signed on July 4, 2025: the Department of Homeland Security's own Federal Register notice on the fees it created opens "On July 4, 2025, the President signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, 139 Stat. 72 (HR-1)", and the site's own hr1_fees.json says the same. What happened in 2026 was the fiscal-year inflation adjustment of the fees, not the law. Every passage now names the law by its year, its public-law number and its signing date. On the ITIN tax-credit page the error also contradicted the next sentence, which already said "the 2025 law".
September 17, 2026
Correction: the USCIS processing time is the 80%-of-cases figure, not a median
The USCIS processing-times movement page and the datasets index, in both languages, described the numbers we publish as "median processing times". They are not medians. USCIS publishes the time within which it says 80% of recent cases were completed, and our own dataset records that: uscis_processing_times.json states "USCIS publishes '80% of cases are completed within X'". The difference matters to a reader planning around a filing — half of cases finishing inside a window is a very different promise from four in five. Four pages now say what the figure actually is, matching the wording the main processing-times page already used.
September 17, 2026
ICE 287(g) dataset refreshed: 2,510 agreements as of ICE's September 15, 2026 workbook
Our 287(g) file was built from ICE's September 8, 2026 workbook. ICE has since published a September 15, 2026 edition, and the pages that read the file were quoting the older totals. The dataset has been re-scraped from ICE's own participating-agencies workbook and the prose re-anchored to it: 2,510 agreements (was 2,466) held by 2,155 distinct agencies, across 40 jurisdictions — 38 states plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, which the pages had been calling "40 states". By model: 179 Jail Enforcement, 1,778 Task Force, 553 Warrant Service Officer. The growth finding is unchanged in shape — 130 of the 2,510 active agreements predate February 2025, so 2,380 (95%) were signed since — and Texas (528) with Florida (353) still hold about 35% of the national total. Twelve states still have none.
September 17, 2026
Correction: the state DMV pages did not tell you a federal rule now limits non-domiciled CDLs
The commercial-driver's-licence row on all 53 state DMV pages, in both languages, said only that a CDL needs a Social Security number and lawful status. It did not mention that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has since narrowed who may hold one. FMCSA's final rule, published February 13, 2026 and effective March 16, 2026, reaffirms its September 29, 2025 interim final rule and limits eligibility for non-domiciled Commercial Learner's Permits and CDLs, for foreign-domiciled individuals, to those holding a specific, verifiable employment-based nonimmigrant status. A separate FMCSA exemption granted May 14, 2026 lets any state issue one to a citizen of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia or Palau with a valid Freely Associated State passport and a Form I-94. Both now appear on every state page, with links to the Federal Register. Someone on a work permit was being told to budget for CDL training that a federal rule may have already closed to them.
September 17, 2026
Correction: the internet-setup guides no longer advertise the Affordable Connectivity Program in their page summary, and the cross-border tax FAQ now names the Form 8938 threshold that actually applies to you
Two leftovers from the September 10 correction wave. The internet-without-SSN guides (EN + ES) had already been corrected in the body to say the Affordable Connectivity Program ended, but their meta description and page summary still listed "low-income programs (ACP)" — the FCC states the ACP "ended on June 1, 2024, due to a lack of additional funding from Congress" (fcc.gov/acp), so the summary now names Lifeline, the program that is still running. Separately, the cross-border tax calculator FAQ (EN + ES) gave the FATCA Form 8938 thresholds as ">$50K (single) or >$100K (MFJ)" with no indication of who they apply to. Per the IRS, those are the thresholds for taxpayers living in the United States — and even there the test is more than $50,000 on the last day of the tax year OR more than $75,000 at any time during the year ($100,000 / $150,000 married filing jointly). Taxpayers living abroad file only above $200,000 / $300,000 (unmarried) or $400,000 / $600,000 (joint). The FAQ now states both sets and says which is which, and the IRS FATCA summary was added to the page's source list. 4 pages touched (2 EN + 2 ES).
September 17, 2026
Our Nicaraguan consulate pages said “this office serves you” about offices that closed in January 2024 — the body text now matches the closure notice
Nicaragua closed its Los Angeles and Houston consulates on January 19, 2024 and New Orleans on January 20, 2024, and the San Francisco office stopped serving the public; Voice of America reported on February 29, 2024 that “en Estados Unidos, por ejemplo, solo funcionan ahora los consulados de Nueva York, Washington y Miami.” Those four pages already carried a closure banner, but the paragraph underneath still read “serves the Nicaraguan community residing in [state]”, the service list was written in the present tense, and the first FAQ — which Google can show as a rich result — answered “Yes” to “Do I need an appointment?” All eight pages (English and Spanish) now state that the office is closed, name Miami, New York and Washington, D.C. as the three that remain, and say plainly that none of the listed services can be obtained at the old address. We also removed an untranslated English fragment from six Spanish pages, repaired a mis-numbered how-to-verify list, and hedged the two “register a US-born child” pages: Nicaragua's appointment portal (citas.cancilleria.gob.ni) rejected our requests on September 17, 2026, so readers are told to phone the consulate or the Embassy in Washington, D.C. at (202) 939-6570 if it will not load. Nicaragua's foreign-ministry site remains unreachable — www.cancilleria.gob.ni returns NXDOMAIN and cancilleria.gob.ni has no address record.
September 17, 2026
Honduras's own appointment system lists 11 consulates in the US — we publish 19, so eight pages now warn that the office is unconfirmed
Honduras publishes no consulate directory: sreci.gob.hn/consulados/ renders a page of navigation with no listings at all (checked in a real browser on September 17, 2026 — 1,827 characters, zero mentions of any US city). The one official surface that does name offices is the appointment system, citaconsular.sreci.gob.hn. Choosing “Estados Unidos” there on September 17, 2026 returned exactly eleven: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, McAllen, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. We publish nineteen Honduran consulate pages. The eight the appointment system does not name — Aurora (CO), Dallas, Glendale (CA), Houston, Irving, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Tampa (FL) — now carry a warning in both languages saying so. We are deliberately not calling those offices closed: a post that takes no online appointments would not appear in that menu either, and with no directory to check against we cannot tell the two cases apart. What the warning does say is that the address and phone printed on the page are unconfirmed, and that readers should call first or use the Embassy of Honduras in Washington, D.C. at (+1) 202-966-7702. Separately, the Phoenix and Irving pages used to credit their address to the “Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs” while citing an OpenStreetMap node that sits in Washington, D.C. and carries no address tag at all; that attribution was corrected on September 10, 2026.
September 17, 2026
Dominican consulate pages: MIREX's Santo Domingo line corrected, and the new e-passport reaches consulates in August 2026, not February
Two corrections across the 13 Dominican consulate pages in the United States (12 English pages plus the Spanish Los Angeles page), together with the script that generates the cluster. First, the phone number: the pages told readers that (809) 987-7001 was MIREX's fax line while simultaneously telling them to call it. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' own website footer reads 'Tel.: (809) 987-7001' and 'Fax: (809) 535-6280' — 987-7001 is the phone, 535-6280 is the fax, and the generator script had been hardcoding the fax number as the number to call. Second, the passport date: the pages said the Dominican Republic's new electronic passport had been available 'since February 2026'. Issuing began inside the Dominican Republic in January 2026 (applications opened 15 January, biometric capture from 19 February), but delivery to Dominicans abroad — including at the US consulates these pages are about — was scheduled to begin in August 2026 (Diario Libre, 5 February 2026). A reader standing at a US consulate in February would have been told to expect a document that was not yet being issued there. The 10-year adult / 5-year minor validity was correct and is unchanged.
September 17, 2026
Correction: the ITIN bank pages for every state carried a stale FDIC date, fourteen wrong Bank of America branch counts, and told readers in 24 states that their state had "limited coverage" when its own table showed hundreds of branches
Three defects were fixed across all 104 ITIN-banking state pages (52 jurisdictions, English and Spanish). First, every page's FAQ attributed its Bank of America branch figure to "FDIC data (June 2026)" while the FDIC table directly above it was captioned with the real vintage of the feed that produced it (2026-09-08, api.fdic.gov/banks/locations). The date was written into the page text once and never moved again when the feed refreshed. The FAQ now says "per the FDIC branch data shown on this page" and carries no date at all, so the table's caption is the single place the vintage lives. Second, fourteen states carried a branch count in that FAQ that no longer matched the feed rendering the table on the same page — Ohio's FAQ said 51 next to a table saying 52, South Carolina said 62 next to 61, California 687 next to 685, and Kentucky and Minnesota were low rather than high (7 vs 8, 22 vs 23). Every count in the cohort was recomputed from the FDIC feed; these were wrong numbers inside FAQPage structured data, which is what an AI assistant or a rich result is most likely to quote. Third, 24 pages said "<State> has limited coverage of traditional banks for ITIN clients. The best options are digital neobanks." That sentence came from a hand-typed list of states, not from the data, and it contradicted the page's own table: South Carolina got it with all three national banks present and 1,194 branches from 76 banks; North Dakota with 411 branches from 71 banks; Rhode Island and Oklahoma while the same page's FAQ was telling the reader to walk into a Bank of America branch. It is replaced by a sentence computed from the FDIC feed, naming which of the three national banks with a documented ITIN path have branches in that state and which do not, and pointing at the table for the counts. No branch count, institution total or date is written into the page text any more: the data date is rendered from the feed at build time, and the counts that remain in the FAQ are re-synced from the feed by the maintenance script each time it runs, so a data refresh no longer leaves the words and the table in contradiction.
September 17, 2026
Correction: the Puerto Rico ITIN banking page called Puerto Rico a state, cited a census release one year behind its siblings, and counted only NCUA credit unions while the island's real co-op sector is supervised by COSSEC
Three fixes on the Puerto Rico page, English and Spanish. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated US territory, not a state, and the demographics line said "the state's 3,254,885 people"; it now says the territory's. The same line cited the American Community Survey 2023 5-year estimates while all fifty sibling pages cite 2024. We queried the Census Bureau API directly for Puerto Rico (2024 ACS 5-year, the Puerto Rico Community Survey): 3,234,309 residents, 87,466 born outside the United States, and 3,200,873 of Hispanic or Latino origin — 2.7% and 99.0%. The page and its meta description now carry those figures. Third, the credit-union block showed only NCUA-insured institutions — eight of them, largely mainland-affiliated federal credit unions — while telling the reader credit unions are "often the most ITIN-flexible option." Puerto Rico's own cooperativas de ahorro y crédito are not NCUA institutions and so appear nowhere in that count: they are supervised and insured, share and deposit insurance up to $250,000 per member, by COSSEC, the Corporación Pública para la Supervisión y Seguro de Cooperativas de Puerto Rico, created by Ley Núm. 114-2001. A sourced sentence now points readers there. No cooperativa counts were invented — COSSEC publishes its own industry statistics and we cite the agency, not a number we could not verify. The page also no longer says Puerto Rico has "limited coverage of traditional banks": none of Bank of America, Wells Fargo or Chase has a branch on the island, but the FDIC table on the page shows 260 insured branches led by Banco Popular de Puerto Rico with 156, and the text now says that instead.
September 17, 2026
A judge set aside the rule ending automatic EAD extensions — but only for the seven people who sued
On September 10, 2026 (order filed September 11, Dkt. 46), Judge David O. Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted a preliminary injunction in Jane Doe 1 et al. v. DHS, No. 8:26-cv-00060, finding that DHS had not justified bypassing notice-and-comment rulemaking when it issued the October 30, 2025 interim final rule that removed the automatic extension of Employment Authorization Documents (90 Fed. Reg. 48799). The relief is narrow: the court set the rule aside only as to the seven named plaintiffs, expressly declined to issue a nationwide injunction, and certified the order for immediate appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), saying it would entertain a nationwide request if the government chooses not to appeal. For everyone else nothing changes yet: EAD renewals (Form I-765) filed on or after October 30, 2025 still receive no automatic extension, and as of September 17, 2026 USCIS had announced no change. What to watch: a government appeal to the Ninth Circuit, or a renewed nationwide-injunction request.
September 16, 2026
Tennessee's HB 1704 stays in effect: judge denies a preliminary injunction for lack of standing, and the first suit is on appeal
On September 16, 2026 Judge Eli Richardson of the Middle District of Tennessee denied a preliminary injunction against Section 1 of HB 1704 (Public Chapter 771), the state crime for a noncitizen with certain final removal orders who intentionally fails to leave Tennessee within 90 days (Lucy v. Skrmetti, No. 3:26-cv-00998). The court found that neither named plaintiff had shown standing for a preliminary injunction; it did not decide whether the law is preempted by federal immigration law, and it deferred its decision on class certification. Section 1 stays in effect. The defendants' motion to dismiss is still pending. The plaintiffs' appeal of the first, dismissed suit (No. 3:26-cv-00763) is pending in the Sixth Circuit as No. 26-5660, where they filed their opening brief on September 11, 2026. This corrects our earlier statement that no appeal had been filed in the first case: the plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal on July 24, 2026.
September 14, 2026
A court postponed the end of "duration of status" one day before it was due to start — and the new I-539 and I-765 editions are not being accepted
On September 14, 2026 the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts postponed the effective date of DHS's final rule replacing "duration of status" with a fixed admission period for F, J and I nonimmigrants (91 Fed. Reg. 44976, July 17, 2026), and preliminarily enjoined DHS from taking any further action to implement it, pending further order or resolution on the merits (Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, et al. v. DHS, 26-cv-13799, D. Mass.). The rule had been due to take effect September 15. Two things follow for filers. First, duration of status still applies — USCIS says it "will proceed under the previous regulatory provisions." Second, the form-edition change that USCIS announced on August 14 did not happen: USCIS "continues to accept the 08/28/24 edition of Form I-539 and 08/21/25 edition of Form I-765 and is not accepting the 09/15/26 edition of Forms I-539 and I-765." That reverses the warning we and others published, and it matters most to anyone filing an I-765 — DACA, TPS, asylum and adjustment applicants included — who was told to switch to the new edition. DHS says it disagrees with the order and will implement the rule if the order is lifted, so this is a postponement, not a cancellation: check the edition date on uscis.gov the day you file. Separately and unaffected by this order, Form I-485 does get a 09/18/26 edition on September 18, 2026 with no grace period.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the Affidavit of Support income table was two years stale, the U visa's sibling rule was wrong, and two official State Department pages disagree on whether entering the visa lottery costs $1.00 or nothing
Fourteen verified defects across the procedures, datasets and tools trees, fixed in English and Spanish together. The most consequential: the Affidavit of Support pages published the 2024 Form I-864P income table — a sponsor for a household of four was told $38,750 when USCIS's chart, "effective beginning Mar. 1, 2026," requires $41,250 at 125% of the poverty guidelines; the table now renders live from our own HHS dataset with both the 125% and the active-duty 100% columns. The same pages said the sponsor's promise "lasts 10 years": 8 U.S.C. 1183a(a)(2)-(3) sets no term at all — the affidavit is enforceable until naturalization or 40 qualifying quarters, and the page's own list of ending events already said so. On the U visa, the site listed derivative siblings as "unmarried siblings under 21"; the statute says unmarried siblings under 18 on the date the principal applied, and only when the principal is under 21 — a principal 21 or older can include only a spouse and children. On the Diversity Visa pages, NACARA was described as adding 5,000 visas to a 60,000 cap: 8 U.S.C. 1151(e) sets the level at 55,000 and Pub. L. 105-100 subtracts up to 5,000 from it, so about 50,000 are available and no 60,000 cap exists. Those pages also called any pre-selection charge a scam. State's own fee table now lists a "Diversity Visa Registration Fee (paid at time of registration only by the principal applicant) $1.00" while State's DV entry page still says "There is no cost to register for the DV Program" — both are quoted and neither is declared the winner. The DV pages also promised a DV-2027 registration window in October-November 2025; State has published no DV-2027 instructions at all, and its instructions page still reads "The processing requirements below are for the DV-2026 program." On tax pages: an ITIN filer was told the American Opportunity and Lifetime Learning credits were available, but P.L. 119-21 § 70606 rewrote 26 U.S.C. 25A(g)(1) to require the taxpayer's own Social Security number "to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025," so both close from tax year 2026 (a 2025 return is unaffected); the non-resident page said a 30% rate applies to US-source income generally, when the IRS says effectively connected income — wages included — is taxed "at graduated rates … the same rates that apply to U.S. citizens and residents" and the flat 30% reaches only unconnected FDAP income; the treaty page dated Hungary's termination for non-withholding taxes to January 1, 2025 when Treasury's own notice says January 1, 2024, and counted 68 treaties in force when the IRS flags Hungary "Treaty Terminated" (Belarus and Russia are flagged "Partially Suspended"). Also fixed: the naturalization pages said an absence of more than a year "automatically" breaks continuous residence without noting that 6-to-12-month absences are presumed to break it too (8 CFR 316.5(c)(1)), and described the 65/20 civics exception as a 20-question test needing 6 correct when the officer asks 10 from a designated bank of 20; the border-wait dataset claimed 82 land ports when the file holds 85 crossings at 53 ports; the TPS work-permit dataset headline said "seven terminations" when its own data shows 11 of 15 designations terminated; the asylum annual-fee pages still said the rule was "open for public comment" 73 days after comments closed on June 29, 2026; and Self was listed as an ITIN-friendly bank on six pages when it sells a Credit Builder Loan and a secured credit card, not a deposit account with a debit card.
September 10, 2026
Correction: every state DMV page carried invented teen-driver ages, and told readers a driving-privilege card counts as an I-9 identity document
A single template row was repeated across 52 English and 52 Spanish state DMV pages: "Learner's permit — typically 15-15.5 years old", "Provisional/junior license — typically 16-17 years old", and "Auto-converts to full license at 18." None of those figures came from any state. Delaware, the page that exposed it, sets the Level One Learner's Permit at "at least 16 years old and less than 18 years old" and its full-licence minimum at 17 — the page's own key-facts table already said 17, so the row contradicted the page it sat on. Every row now renders the value our own dataset holds for that state (website/data/dmv/state_general.json), and the generator reads the dataset instead of a guess. A second bullet on 53 English and 53 Spanish pages told readers a "standard or undocumented license" counts as an I-9 List B identity document; Delaware's DMV says its Driving Privilege Card "will NOT be considered a valid form of identification" and the card is printed "Not Valid for Identification" on its face, so the bullet was split and the caveat added. Delaware's own card row also said the card requires "DE residency for 6+ months + payment of DE income tax for 2+ years" — the DMV requires a Certification of Filing Compliance showing Delaware taxes were FILED for the previous two years, and publishes no months-of-residency test.
September 10, 2026
Correction: state DMV pages hinted a matrícula consular "may" be accepted — in the states whose own rules require US-agency proof of lawful presence
"Depends on the state. [State] may accept matrícula consular under certain circumstances" appeared on the English and Spanish page of every jurisdiction that does NOT issue a licence or ID without regard to immigration status — precisely the states where a consular ID cannot carry an applicant. Texas puts the requirement in statute: an applicant who is not a US citizen "must present to the department documentation issued by the appropriate United States agency that authorizes the applicant to be in the United States" (Tex. Transp. Code § 521.142(a)). Kentucky tells non-US citizens they "must provide proof of identity and lawful status"; North Dakota requires "proof of identity, date of birth, and legal presence in the United States" from every applicant; Tennessee requires "Citizenship or Legal Presence"; Michigan accepts only "a Canadian driver's license or a valid foreign passport" among foreign identity documents. Each page now says a matrícula consular, issued by a foreign consulate rather than a US agency, cannot meet that requirement, and points at the agency's own current document list. Puerto Rico was written separately: it issues a provisional licence under Ley 97-2013, so its page distinguishes the two credentials instead of asserting a flat no.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the SNAP gross-income limit had no elderly or disability exception, and benefit pages promised a child's benefits "never count against you"
Fifty English and fifty Spanish SNAP state pages answered "how much do I get" with a flat "Max gross income: 130% FPL." Under 7 CFR 273.9(a) a household containing a member age 60 or older or with a disability "shall meet the net income eligibility standards" only — it is exempt from the gross-income test entirely — and categorically eligible households meet neither test. A household that would have read itself out of SNAP now sees the exception. Separately, across the Medicaid and SNAP state pages, the hubs and the public-charge guide, the site told readers that benefits used by their US-citizen children "never count against you." USCIS policy alert PA-2026-09, effective 18 September 2026, does say USCIS "does not attribute to the alien the receipt of means-tested public benefits if the benefit is received by the applicant's relatives, including children" — but it adds that where a relative the applicant is legally obliged to support qualifies "based on the alien's income or assets falling below a certain level, then officers should consider the alien's income or assets falling below the threshold as part of the assets, resources, and financial status factor." That caveat is now on every page that made the promise. The Spanish SNAP hub also still answered the public-charge question with a bare "No" eight days before the 2022 rule's rescission takes effect (91 FR 45324); it now carries the date.
September 10, 2026
Correction: three know-your-rights errors — a regulation that never says "judicial", ICE's first courthouse directive described as a narrowing, and one E-Verify clock where there are two
On the page whose whole thesis is the difference between a judge's warrant and an administrative one, we attributed the judicial qualifier to the regulation itself: "federal regulation instructs that immigration officers may not enter non-public areas without consent or a judicial warrant (8 CFR 287.8(f)(2))." The regulation says "either a warrant or the consent of the owner or other person in control of the site to be inspected" — the judge-signed requirement for a home comes from the Fourth Amendment, not from that text. The sensitive-locations timeline listed "2018 — internal narrowing — reduced courthouse limitations", preceded by a 2013 courthouse guidance we cannot source; ICE Directive 11072.1 (issued and effective 10 January 2018) records "Superseded: None" on its own header, which makes it ICE's first courthouse directive rather than a narrowing of anything. And the workplace page gave a single deadline after an E-Verify mismatch: "contest within 8 federal working days." E-Verify runs two clocks — 10 federal government working days from issuance of the mismatch to tell your employer you will act, then eight federal government working days from receiving the Referral Date Confirmation to contact DHS or SSA. A worker counting eight days from the mismatch was counting the wrong clock.
September 10, 2026
Correction: childcare pages sent parents to a "[State] Department of Human Services" that most states do not have
The childcare-by-state generator ended its "immigrant-friendly states" section with "Verify with [State] Department of Human Services" on all 52 English and 52 Spanish state pages. Most states have no agency by that name — North Carolina runs SNAP and childcare through the Department of Health and Human Services, Arizona through the Department of Economic Security, and so on — so the sentence sent a reader searching for an office that does not exist, on a page that already renders the state's real portal, its CCDF programme name and its application methods a few lines above. Each page now points at those official contacts and at the state's childcare.gov page, which names the agency; the generator was corrected so a rebuild cannot restore the invented name.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our Cuba and Nicaragua “voting from the US” pages described a procedure that does not exist — neither country lets citizens abroad vote
Four pages (Cuba and Nicaragua, English and Spanish) told readers their country had “established consular voting… and/or postal voting” for citizens abroad, listed presidential, legislative and referendum ballots as available, and gave a registration deadline of “30-90 days before election day.” None of that is true for either country. Cuba's Ley No. 127, “Ley Electoral” (Gaceta Oficial No. 60 Ordinaria, 19 August 2019), art. 7 c) requires “residencia efectiva en el país por un período no menor de dos (2) años antes de las elecciones”, and art. 8 c) withholds the vote from anyone who does not meet that residence requirement — living in the US removes the right itself, and Cuba's President is elected by the deputies of the National Assembly (arts. 220-224), not by voters. Nicaragua's Ley No. 331 (reforms incorporated, La Gaceta – Diario Oficial No. 92, 20 May 2022), art. 109 makes an overseas vote conditional on the Consejo Supremo Electoral deciding, six months before the electoral process begins, that four operating conditions can be met, including an overseas voter registry it has never built; the decision has never been taken. The four pages were rewritten to quote the statutes, explain why no procedure exists, and say what a citizen can actually do; the same fabricated “30-90 day” deadline was removed from the other 20 voting-from-abroad pages, Mexico's real window was published (LGIPE art. 334: 1 September to 15 December of the year before the election) along with the internet-voting channel that 67.86% of the 2024 overseas roll used, and the generator template was corrected so a rebuild cannot restore the falsehoods.
September 10, 2026
Correction: closed Nicaraguan consulates listed as open, two moved Mexican consulates, and a UN mission published as a consulate
A sweep of the consulate directory found addresses that would send a reader to the wrong building or to no building at all. Nicaragua closed its consulates in Los Angeles and Houston on 19 January 2024 and in New Orleans on 20 January 2024 — in Los Angeles by a notice on the door reading “el Consulado de la Ciudad de Los Ángeles cesa funciones a partir de hoy 19 de enero de 2024” — and the San Francisco office stopped serving the public; only Miami, New York and Washington, D.C. still operate, yet our hub said “7 consular offices” and every city page read as open. Mexico's consulates in Oklahoma City and Fresno have moved: SRE's directory (last updated 6 August 2026) gives 1131 W Sheridan Ave., Oklahoma City, OK 73106, tel. (405) 753-5622 — our page had the old 401 Northwest 16th Street and a number that no longer reaches the office — and 7435 N Ingram Ave., Fresno, CA 93711 in place of 2409 Merced Street. The Honduras and Ecuador New York pages printed 866 United Nations Plaza with a green “verified” badge: that is each country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, which issues no passports or civil-registry documents, and the actual consulate address sat further down the same page. The Argentine consulate in Atlanta is at 53 Perimeter Center East, Suite #500, Atlanta, GA 30346 (its own site, contact page updated 19/03/2025), not 245 Peachtree Center Avenue, its email is catla@mrecic.gov.ar, and its jurisdiction is Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee — North Carolina belongs to the Embassy in Washington and Florida to Miami, and Argentine consulates are fixed-jurisdiction, so the old list cost readers the appointment.
September 10, 2026
Correction: a geocoding bug pinned 104 consulates to the wrong city, and our sourcing lines claimed verifications that never happened
Three sourcing defects, all fixed. First, the script that enriched our consulate dataset from OpenStreetMap matched a POI to a city with a containment test; when an OSM node carries no addr:city tag its city normalizes to the empty string, and an empty string is a substring of every city name, so the first tagless diplomatic POI in a country matched every city in it. That put 47 Mexican consulates on a node in Brownsville, Texas, 29 Guatemalan on a Miami node, 17 Honduran and 15 Dominican on Washington, D.C. nodes — published as each page's geographic source and used as its map pin. The false enrichment was stripped from 104 records and the matcher now requires a real city. Second, 32 Mexican consulate pages said their addresses were “cross-referenced against the U.S. State Department's foreign consular office directory”; that check was never run, and the Department no longer publishes such a directory — its page now renders one link and no list (read 2026-09-10) — so the sentence and the 52 pages that linked the directory were corrected. Third, 149 pages credited “datos del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores” for data whose own source field is the English Wikipedia list of that country's diplomatic missions; those lines now say what the data is. Separately, the by-state pages sent readers in a consulate-less state to neighbouring states chosen by geography rather than by whether they host a consulate — South Dakota's page named Iowa, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota, all of which our own pages say host none, and the lists were circular — so all of them are now built from the consulate data and name the actual offices.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our green-card-to-citizenship pages still described the 2008 civics test — USCIS has given the 2025 test since October 20, 2025
108 pages (54 English + 54 Spanish) told readers the naturalization civics test is 10 questions drawn from a 100-question list with 6 correct to pass, and pointed them at the 100-question study list. USCIS's own Study for the Test page says: "We will administer the 2025 naturalization civics test to aliens who file Form N-400, Application for Naturalization on or after Oct. 20, 2025. The 2025 naturalization civics test is an oral test consisting of 20 questions from the list of 128 civics test questions. You must answer 12 questions correctly to pass the 2025 test." Applicants who filed before October 20, 2025 still take the 2008 test, and applicants 65 or older with 20+ years as a permanent resident answer 10 questions from a specially selected bank of 20. Every page now states which test applies by filing date, and the generator templates that produced them were corrected too.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the U visa costs $0, not $440 — 16 pages quoted a fee USCIS does not charge
A cost FAQ repeated across 16 path-to-status pages said "U-visa: $440 (fee waiver available)" — and on the two U-visa pages themselves the body repeated the $440 a second time, contradicting the same page's own "Fee: FREE" heading. Form G-1055 (edition 09/09/26), the fee schedule USCIS publishes, lists Form I-918 Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status at $0 for general filing, and $0 for Supplement A and Supplement B; Form I-192 is also $0 for U petitioners. There is no fee and nothing to waive. Because those FAQ answers render as FAQPage structured data, the wrong figure was also being fed to search engines.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our Selective Service table said everyone must register — five categories that Selective Service exempts were printed as "YES"
The who-must-register table on both language versions marked every row "YES," including lawful non-immigrants on current non-immigrant visas, H-2A seasonal agricultural workers, people confined for medical reasons, people continually confined by disability, and members of the Armed Forces on active duty. Selective Service's own Who Needs to Register chart marks all of those "No" or "No*", and Form N-400 agrees for non-immigrants ("Do not select 'Yes' if you were a lawful nonimmigrant for all of that time period"). The cause was a rendering bug, not bad data: our parsed dataset had the correct "no" values, but the page generator truth-tested a string, and the non-empty string "no" is true in Python, so every row printed YES. The generator and the pages are both fixed. The same pages also said the registration deadline is 30 days BEFORE the 26th birthday (it attaches within 30 days AFTER the 18th birthday, with late registration accepted until the day you turn 26), cited the wrong N-400 item (it is Part 9, Items 22.a.-22.c. on the 01/20/25 edition, not Part 11 Question 38), and described a 5-to-8-year naturalization bar that does not exist.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the expanded expedited-removal designation became operative July 17, 2026 — not June 23
Four pages headlined June 23, 2026 as the date the January 2025 nationwide expansion came back into force. On June 23 a D.C. Circuit panel did vacate the district court's stay in Make the Road New York v. Mullin, No. 25-5320 — but the Clerk withheld issuance of the mandate the same day, so the policy remained blocked. The government moved on June 26 for a stay pending appeal, and the court granted it on July 17, 2026 while denying early issuance of the mandate. AILA's summary of that order (AILA Doc. No. 26062463) reads: "The expansion designation is now unblocked and in effect." The window matters: an interior expedited-removal order issued between June 23 and July 17, 2026 was issued while the expansion was still blocked.
September 10, 2026
Correction: EB-5 filing fee is $4,675, not $11,160 — and the capital lock-up is 2 years, not 5
Both EB-5 pages quoted an $11,160 filing fee, a "12-24 month" I-526E wait, an at-risk rule broken by "returning funds before 5+ years," a total USCIS-fee line of "~$13,000-$15,000," a Regional Center Program "currently SUSPENDED periodically," and in-state tuition as a benefit derivatives receive. Form G-1055 (ed. 09/09/26) prices Form I-526E at $3,675 plus the separate $1,000 EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act fee on an initial filing — $4,675 — and the three-form total (I-526E + $1,000 + I-485 $1,440 + I-829 $3,750) is $9,865. USCIS Policy Manual 6 USCIS-PM G.2 says: "For petitions filed on or after March 15, 2022, the capital must be expected to remain invested for not less than 2 years." The 2022 Act reauthorized the Regional Center Program, ending the lapse-and-reauthorize cycle. USCIS's live 80th-percentile figure for I-526E at the Immigrant Investor Program Office is about 35 months. A green card makes a person eligible to establish state residency for tuition; it does not itself confer in-state rates.
September 10, 2026
Correction: 14 utility pages sent readers to apply for the Affordable Connectivity Program, which ended June 1, 2024
A body bullet on 14 pages offered "ACP (Affordable Connectivity): $30/month for internet, $75 on tribal lands," and a FAQ answer on 7 of them named the ACP as a live low-income discount — while one of the same pages already said elsewhere that the program had ended. USAC, which administered the program for the FCC, states: "The ACP ended on June 1, 2024, due to a lack of additional funding from Congress." There is no successor. Every one of those pages now points to Lifeline instead, which is live: up to $9.25 a month off phone or internet, and up to $34.25 a month on qualifying Tribal lands. Note for the record: the FCC's own ACP fact sheet returns HTTP 403 to automated requests, so this was verified at USAC, the FCC's administrator, and at lifelinesupport.org.
September 10, 2026
Correction: HPV is not a required immigration vaccine — 30 vaccination pages listed it as one
A context block repeated on 30 pages (15 English + 15 Spanish) listed "HPV (age 9-26 catch-up)" among the vaccinations CDC's Technical Instructions for Civil Surgeons require, and dated those instructions to a "most recent major update 2023." CDC's vaccination page for civil surgeons lists exactly these required vaccines: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus, Haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease, varicella, pneumococcal disease and influenza. HPV does not appear anywhere on it, and neither does zoster; the page's own last-updated date is March 11, 2025. A reader who believed the old text could have paid for a three-dose HPV series USCIS never asks for.
September 10, 2026
Correction: a Form I-693 signed on or after November 1, 2023 has no 2-year expiry — it lasts as long as the application it was filed with
The immigration medical exam hub said the I-693 is "valid for 2 years from the date the civil surgeon signs," contradicting its own child pages. USCIS Policy Manual 8 USCIS-PM B.4 says a properly completed Form I-693 signed on or after November 1, 2023 "can only be used as evidence to show that the applicant is not inadmissible under the health-related grounds for the entire period the immigration benefit application with which the Form I-693 is submitted is pending," while one signed before that date "retains evidentiary value for 2 years from the date of the civil surgeon's signature." The same pages also linked to my.uscis.gov/findadoctor for finding a civil surgeon, which now returns HTTP 404; the working page is uscis.gov/tools/find-a-civil-surgeon, and that link was replaced on all four pages that carried it.
September 10, 2026
Correction: a federal-document apostille costs $20, not $8 — and China and Canada now accept apostilles
Both apostille pages priced the State Department's Office of Authentications service at about $8 per document and listed China and Canada as non-Hague countries needing full embassy legalization. The Schedule of Fees for Consular Services, 22 CFR 22.1, item 46, reads: "Authentications (by the Office of Authentications domestically): (a) Each basic authentication service $20." The HCCH status table for the 1961 Apostille Convention shows China acceded on 8 March 2023 with entry into force 7 November 2023, and Canada on 12 May 2023 with entry into force 11 January 2024. Both now accept an apostille.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our own methodology page advertised four automated monitors that do not exist, and a 90-day re-verification guarantee we do not meet
The methodology page (both languages) listed an EOIR statistics scraper, a state DMV contact verifier, a per-country consulate verifier and a daily TPS designation tracker, and described the USCIS processing-times pull as weekly. None of those four exists in our scheduled workflows, and the processing-times pull is monthly and currently run by hand because USCIS renders the data behind Cloudflare. The page also promised that "every 90 days minimum, every page is re-verified" — a promise a reader can falsify from our own Last Verified dates. The monitor table now lists only what actually runs (Federal Register, CBP border waits, State Department visa waits and litigation dockets daily; FX rates weekly; Visa Bulletin plus fee-change watcher monthly on the 16th; HRSA health-center data quarterly; a weekly source-link health check; and the hand-run monthly USCIS processing-times pull), says in plain terms which monitors do not exist, and replaces the 90-day guarantee with the honest version: each page prints the date it was last checked. The same 90-day promise was corrected on the editorial-standards pages, and the meta description's "6,000+ pages" was corrected to 4,500+ — our live sitemaps carry 2,268 English and 2,268 Spanish URLs.
September 10, 2026
Correction: at least eight federal Circuits protect recording the police, not six — and Riley bars searching your phone, not seizing it
Both recording-rights pages counted six Circuits and told readers in the remaining Circuits the question was unsettled. Irizarry v. Yehia, 38 F.4th 1282 (10th Cir. 2022) says: "We recognize that the right exists and was clearly established when the incident occurred" — which is what defeats qualified immunity in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. Sharpe v. Winterville Police Department, 59 F.4th 674 (4th Cir. 2023) holds "that livestreaming a police traffic stop is speech protected by the First Amendment" (the officer there still received qualified immunity because the right was not yet clearly established in that circuit). Both pages also said officers "cannot lawfully seize your phone, search it, or delete recordings without a warrant." Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) is narrower: its holding "is not that the information on a cell phone is immune from search; it is that a warrant is generally required before a search," and officers "remain free to examine the physical aspects of a phone" and may secure it while seeking that warrant. Telling readers a seizure is unlawful invites the confrontation the page warns against. The Spanish page separately named 42 U.S.C. 1983 as the remedy on a page about filming ICE; Section 1983 reaches only state actors, so both pages now say that a claim against a federal officer would be a Bivens action, sharply narrowed by Egbert v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482 (2022).
September 10, 2026
Correction: an ICE detainer's 48 hours exclude Saturdays, Sundays and holidays — across a holiday weekend that is four or five days
Four pages said a detainer asks a jail to hold someone "up to 48 hours" past their release. The regulation, 8 CFR 287.7(d), says the agency "shall maintain custody of the alien for a period not to exceed 48 hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays." That exclusion is the number a family actually plans a pickup around, so all four pages now carry it.
September 10, 2026
Correction: Sudan and Ukraine TPS run THROUGH October 19, 2026 under extensions — neither is terminated
Our I-821 pages said Sudan and Ukraine "terminate October 19, 2026." USCIS's Sudan country page reads: "TPS Continues Through: Oct. 19, 2026, under the extension of Sudan's TPS designation announced in the Jan. 17, 2025, FRN (90 FR 5944)"; the Ukraine page reads "TPS Designated Through: Oct. 19, 2026" (90 FR 5936). Neither has a published termination notice, and DHS can extend either again — October 19 ends an extension period, it does not terminate a designation. Both pages now also carry the separate, earlier date that the country pages publish: the EAD auto-extension by Federal Register notice ended April 19, 2026, which is proof of status rather than status itself.
September 10, 2026
Correction: four USCIS wait times on our pages were far shorter than USCIS's own published figures
Eight pages quoted wait ranges that our own USCIS processing-times dataset contradicts. VAWA self-petitions (Form I-360) were described as "18-36 months" and, in the page metadata, as "about 15.5 months" — 15.5 was the median across four unrelated I-360 categories, not the VAWA figure; USCIS's 80th-percentile figure for VAWA is about 51.5 months. The I-601A provisional unlawful-presence waiver was given as 12-18 months against USCIS's 27.5. The I-526E was given as 12-24 months against 35. Removing conditions on residence (Form I-751) was given as 18-36 months against 33.5 months at service centers and 37.0 across field offices. The two I-360 pages now render the live dataset table instead of a hand-typed one, so the figures cannot drift again, and every other page states the USCIS figure with a pointer to check it live. Understating an I-601A wait by a year is the difference between a planned trip abroad and a family stranded there.
September 10, 2026
Correction: replacing a Form I-94 costs $584, not $24 — the $24 is an additional fee sent separately
A fee-comparison table on six pages showed Form I-94 replacement as "Free for most" before H.R.1 and "$24" after. Form G-1055 (ed. 09/09/26) shows Form I-102 at $560 general filing, with the Pub. L. 119-21 I-94 fee of $24 listed as an "Additional Form I-94 Fee" that "you must submit... separately from the filing fee." So the before figure was never free and the after figure is $584. A reader who budgeted $24 would have had the filing rejected for the wrong fee.
September 10, 2026
Correction: most Advance Parole categories cost $580 filed online, not a flat $630
Both Form I-131 pages quoted a flat $630 for Advance Parole. Form G-1055 (ed. 09/09/26) lists $630 paper / $580 online for the pending-I-485, pending-initial-I-821, DED, DACA and TPS Travel Authorization categories; only the Re-Entry Permit row is paper-only at $630, and T and U holders pay $0. The pages already carried the separate Pub. L. 119-21 immigration parole fee that CBP collects at the port of entry each time an Advance Parole document is used; that remains unchanged.
September 10, 2026
Correction: if your DACA lapsed more than a year ago, the filing is an initial request — and USCIS is barred from granting those
The DACA renewal calculator told readers that a DACA expired more than a year ago "may have to be filed as if it were a new request, which is more complex and uncertain." USCIS's DACA page is blunter: "USCIS will continue to accept initial requests but will not process initial DACA requests at this time," and "DHS is prohibited from granting initial DACA requests and related employment authorization under the final rule." There is no path to a grant right now, though the fees would still be charged. The same pages said filing more than 150 days out "can lead to rejection"; USCIS says only that filing earlier than 150 days "will not result in a faster decision," and names no rejection consequence.
September 10, 2026
DHS interim final rule: a child born on or after September 4, 2026 to a “foreign government employee” can register as a permanent resident — comments were accepted through October 5, and a Maryland injunction limits who it reaches
The Federal Register printed DHS's interim final rule on September 9, 2026 (FR doc 2026-18345, RIN 1615-AD24, DHS Docket No. USCIS-2026-0496), amending 8 CFR parts 101 and 264. It decides no one's citizenship: Trump v. Barbara still stands, a child born in the United States to undocumented parents is a U.S. citizen at birth, and every Executive Order 14418 category requires that neither parent is a U.S. citizen. What the rule changes is the registration mechanism — it replaces “foreign diplomatic officer” with the broader “foreign government employee,” which includes persons employed by a foreign embassy or consulate who are nationals of that foreign country and excludes third-country nationals, contractors, personal employees of officials and most state-owned-enterprise employees, and it lets those children voluntarily register as lawful permanent residents on Form I-485, with Form G-325R revised for those who do not. In the rule's own words it “is effective on September 4, 2026” and “will apply to children born to foreign government employees on or after September 4, 2026; children born to a foreign government employees prior to that date will be treated consistently with the regulations in place at the time of their birth,” and comments “must be received on or before October 5, 2026.” DHS adds that it will not implement the rule against any member of the certified class in Casa Inc. v. Trump, No. 8:25-cv-00201 (D. Md.), while the preliminary injunction entered there on September 2, 2026 stands; the government moved to dissolve or stay that injunction on September 8, 2026 (ECF 183) and the motion is pending. The State Department published its own implementation plan on September 4; the Social Security Administration and the Justice Department had published nothing as of September 10, 2026, and any family with a child born on or after September 4, 2026 to a parent employed by a foreign government, embassy, consulate or international organization should take the question to a licensed immigration attorney.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our Section 8 eligibility list invented one immigration category and left out four real ones
Our housing hub told readers that the eligible statuses for Section 8 and public housing are US citizen, permanent resident, refugee or asylee, Cuban-Haitian entrant and "VAWA self-petitioner". A VAWA self-petition is not on the statutory list at all, and the list omitted four categories that are: people paroled under INA 212(d)(5), people granted withholding of removal under INA 241(b)(3), people with temporary or permanent residence under INA 245A, and Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau citizens under the Compacts of Free Association, who also get a local preference under 24 CFR 5.506(c). Rewritten to the categories in 42 U.S.C. 1436a(a) as 24 CFR 5.506(a) applies them, on 2 pages (EN + ES) and in the generator scripts that produce them. VAWA still gives survivors separate housing protections — confidentiality, continued occupancy and emergency transfer — but not voucher eligibility.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our SNAP pages overstated the average benefit, printed a household-of-four figure above the legal maximum, and named an agency that does not exist in most states
Three template defects were repaired on 102 SNAP pages (51 EN + 51 ES). (1) "Average: $200-$300 per person/month" — USDA FNA reports the actual FY2025 national average monthly benefit per person as $188.30, so the whole quoted range sat above the real figure. (2) "Household of 4: ~$800-$1,200/month" — the FY2026 federal maximum for a four-person household in the 48 states and DC is $994, so the upper bound exceeded the legal maximum by $206, on pages whose own allotment table already printed $994. (3) "Visit the [State] Department of Human Services" appeared on all 50 state pages, but most states have no agency by that name; the step now points at the official contacts block already on each page, built from the USDA FNA state directory. The generator scripts were corrected too.
September 10, 2026
Correction: we told mixed-status families not to include an ineligible member's information — federal rules require the state to count that income
On 102 SNAP pages (51 EN + 51 ES) the mixed-status advice read "Don't include ineligible members' information" / "NO incluya información sobre miembros inelegibles". Under 7 CFR 273.11(c)(3)(i) the State agency "must count all or, at the discretion of the State agency, all but a pro rata share, of the ineligible alien's income and deductible expenses and all of the ineligible alien's resources", and a SNAP household under 7 CFR 273.1(a) is everyone who lives together and customarily buys and prepares food together. Following our old wording produced an under-reported application and an overpayment the state can bill back. The corrected text separates the two rules that actually apply: the non-applicant's status does not have to be documented (7 CFR 273.4(b)(2)), but their income and resources are counted for the eligible members' allotment.
September 10, 2026
Correction: work-authorized non-residents are not categorically shut out of Medicare, and DC's Health Care Alliance no longer takes new adults 26 and older
Two categorical claims were repaired. Our Medicare page said a work-authorized non-permanent-resident is "generally not eligible for Medicare". 42 U.S.C. 426(a) grants Part A at 65 to anyone entitled to monthly Social Security benefits under section 402 and sets no citizenship or green-card condition; 42 U.S.C. 402(y) pays those benefits to an alien who is lawfully present, which 8 CFR 1.3 defines to include deferred action, TPS and DED. With 40 quarters, that person gets premium-free Part A and can then enroll in Part B under 42 U.S.C. 1395o(1). What is closed is the buy-in, open under 1395o(2) only to citizens and LPRs of five continuous years. Separately, our Medicaid state table said DC's Alliance covers "all adults regardless of status"; DHCF's own published changes for October 1, 2025 are "No new enrollees 26 and older" and an income limit cut "from 215% of the federal poverty level to 138%".
September 10, 2026
DMV pages: we told readers a non-REAL-ID license means you cannot board a domestic flight, cited the wrong federal rule, and said most states issue a state ID regardless of status
A source-by-source re-read of the 127-page DMV cluster on Sept. 10, 2026 corrected six template claims and eight state-specific ones. (1) Every state page carried an absolute: without a REAL ID "you cannot board a domestic commercial flight in the US." TSA's own identification page now says the opposite: "Starting February 1, 2026, if you are unable to provide the required acceptable form of ID at a TSA checkpoint, you will have the option to pay a $45 fee to use TSA ConfirmID. TSA will then attempt to verify your identity so you can begin the airport security screening process." TSA puts the check at "an average of 10-15 minutes; however, it could take 30 minutes or more." All 106 English and Spanish pages that carried the sentence now say that, and that you are still refused if TSA cannot verify you; the /dmv/ hub and 13 more state pages carried the same absolute in other words ("cannot be used to board a domestic flight") and now say the card is not accepted as identification, which is what is actually true. (2) The same block cited 49 CFR 1560 as the REAL ID authority on 104 pages. 49 CFR part 1560 is the Secure Flight Program and contains no REAL ID provision; the REAL ID rule is 6 CFR part 37, and the pages now cite 6 CFR 37.5(b) plus 37.5(d)(4), which lets federal agencies phase enforcement in but requires them to "achieve full enforcement of the requirements of paragraphs (b) and (c) of this section no later than May 5, 2027." (3) The non-driving state-ID row on 104 pages said "Status not required in most states for ID-only." NCSL counts "Nineteen states and the District of Columbia" whose laws let unauthorized immigrants obtain a credential - a minority, not most - and not all of those extend it to the ID card. (4) The Florida SB 1718 pages named only Connecticut's "Drive Only" and Delaware's "Driving Privilege Only" classes. FLHSMV publishes a second list on the same page - California, Colorado, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington - whose non-REAL-ID licenses "may be invalid in the state of Florida if presented by a driver who is not lawfully present in the United States." Our own page then advised readers to consider California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York or Washington. (5) The Colorado CDL row gave no warning that, per the Colorado DMV, "effective Monday, September 29, 2025, the Colorado DMV has paused the issuance and renewals of term-limited (non-domiciled) Commercial Driver Licenses (CDLs) and Commercial Learner Permits (CLPs) to temporarily lawfully present residents until further notice." (6) The FAQ "Do they accept matricula consular?" asserted on 40 pages that the state accepts it "under certain circumstances" with no state source; it now sends readers to each agency's acceptable-document list. State fixes: Colorado's Standard fees had been read off the REAL ID table and were stale ($34 / $21.50 / $13.30 become the current $36 / $23.00 / $14.00); the Colorado credential's banner was quoted truncated, hiding the voting and public-benefit limits, and its 3-year validity and CRS 42-2-501 to 506 basis were missing; "such as providing state tax returns" was NCSL's 2013 description of SB13-251 and appears nowhere in Colorado's current document set; Arizona's "8 years; expires when driver turns 65" contradicted A.R.S. 28-3171(A), which makes the license valid until the 65th birthday and keys five-year renewals to age 60; Hawaii's limited-purpose license was cited to HRS 286-101.5 instead of 286-104.5, whose subsection (c) requires a reverse-side legend broader than "LIMITED PURPOSE"; a scraped Wikipedia sentence was serving as Hawaii's agency NAME in five places on each Hawaii page; New Jersey and New York said lawful status is required for the standard license when NJ MVC issues it "without regard to immigration status" and NY's Green Light Law "allows all New Yorkers age 16 and older to apply for a standard, not-for-federal purpose, non-commercial driver license or learner permit regardless of their citizenship or lawful status in the United States" (New York's non-driver ID card is the exception NY DMV names: "The Green Light Law does not apply to Non-Driver ID cards."); and the Minnesota fee link on four pages, which those pages' own cost FAQ defers to, is a 404 - the whole dps.mn.gov tree returns 404 today - so those cells now point to the fee schedule in Minn. Stat. sec. 171.06 - the same statute that settles two more Minnesota rows, since subd. 3(d) says the application "must not provide for identification of ... the applicant's citizenship, immigration status, or lawful presence in the United States" and bars DVS from asking, while our table said lawful status was required for both the standard license and the ID card.
September 10, 2026
Correction: two of the four immigration hotlines we published on 104 legal-aid pages were numbers that do not exist
Every state legal-aid page carried a "Specific-case hotlines" block listing "Asylum: RAICES (1-866-RAICES-4)" and "Detention: NIPNLG (1-800-867-2924)". Neither number is published by the organization it was attributed to. RAICES' own contact page publishes "+1 (833) 372-4237" and nothing in the 866 range; 1-866-RAICES-4 dials 1-866-724-2374, a number RAICES does not list anywhere. NIPNLG's contact page publishes exactly two numbers, "Phone: (617) 227-9727" and "Fax: (617) 227-5495", and the string 867-2924 does not appear on the site at all. A person in detention, or a family trying to reach an asylum organization, was being handed a dead or misrouted number at the moment it mattered most. All 104 pages (52 EN + 52 ES) now carry RAICES 1-833-372-4237 and the National Immigration Project (NIPNLG) (617) 227-9727, plus the ICE ERO Detention Reporting and Information Line 1-888-351-4024, which ICE publishes at ice.gov/contact/ero. The two numbers in the same block that were already correct were re-verified at the source and left alone: the National Domestic Violence Hotline publishes "1.800.799.SAFE (7233)" and the National Human Trafficking Hotline publishes "1-888-373-7888". The generator that stamps this block onto every state page was corrected in the same pass.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our USCIS office pages sent readers to "myUSCIS.com", a lookalike domain that redirects to a private medical-exam site, and told them a few walk-in slots exist
All 104 USCIS field-office pages (52 EN + 52 ES) told readers to schedule an InfoPass appointment "via myUSCIS.com". Checked on 2026-09-10, https://myuscis.com answers HTTP 301 with Location: http://www.uscismedicalexams.com/ — a private commercial site, not a government one. The USCIS account portal is my.uscis.gov, which does brand itself "myUSCIS"; the word was right, the ".com" turned it into exactly the lookalike-domain pattern USCIS's own Avoid Scams program warns about. The pages now point to my.uscis.gov and give the USCIS Contact Center number USCIS publishes, 800-375-5283 (TTY 800-767-1833). The same pages' appointment FAQ said "few walk-in slots available", contradicting a line further down the same page; USCIS states categorically: "USCIS field offices do not allow walk-ins. You must have an appointment to visit an office." That FAQ now says an appointment is required for every purpose. The cluster hub also said "USCIS operates 93 field offices nationwide" and "walk-ins generally not allowed". Two independent sources refute 93: the USCIS Field Operations Directorate page says the directorate includes "88 field offices", and USCIS's own field-office-by-ZIP file dated 2026-07-29 lists 92 domestic field offices. The hub now quotes both figures rather than picking one, and states the no-walk-ins rule as USCIS states it. The two generator scripts that write this block were corrected in the same pass.
September 10, 2026
Correction: we called free IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers fee-based Certifying Acceptance Agents, printed the word "none" where an address should be, and hid "this TAC is currently closed" on 34 offices
Three defects across the 104 IRS-office pages (52 EN + 52 ES). (1) Every page said "many TACs are designated as Certifying Acceptance Agents" and its FAQ named an "ITIN-Certifying Acceptance Agent" designation. The IRS's own "Compare options to apply in person" table lists them as separate options: "IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center with ITIN services | Free | Reviews W-7: Yes | Helps complete W-7: No | Authenticates most supporting documents: Yes" against "Certifying Acceptance Agent | Fee-based | Yes | Yes | Yes". Calling a free IRS office a CAA implied a charge that does not exist, and implied help completing the W-7 that a TAC does not give. (2) The office tables printed the IRS locator's literal placeholder string "none" into the Address, Phone and Hours cells for 35 offices — a row that promised an office in a city and then showed nothing — while dropping the locator's note for that office. Our own dataset held the missing hours all along: the Cedar Rapids, Iowa row showed no address, no phone and no hours while the data said "This TAC opens 10 a.m. - Noon Tuesday and Thursday ONLY". The same dropped-notes bug hid "*This TAC is currently closed*" on 34 offices, 23 of which rendered a full address, a phone and "8:30am - 4:30pm" hours — the pages were sending readers to closed IRS offices. Empty cells now say so, and the locator's standing note is printed; dated one-off notes are deliberately not surfaced, because a May-dated closure would read as current. (3) The freshness line stamped a September verification over a directory snapshot taken 2026-05-27 (only DC, HI, MT and SC were reconciled later, on 2026-07-22). Each page now says which date the directory was captured and separately when the page was reviewed. The generator was fixed, and so was the CI gate that had been requiring the pages to print "none" — it now imports the renderer's own cell composer, so gate and generator cannot drift again.
September 10, 2026
Correction: our BIA-recognized directory listed organizations DOJ does not recognize, ran on a roster four and a half months old, and called a listing count an organization count
The 104 BIA-recognized-help pages (52 EN + 52 ES) were built from the EOIR Recognition & Accreditation Roster of April 20, 2026. The live roster is stamped "Report Last Updated on: 09/06/26", and re-pulling it changed the tables materially. Two rows were phantoms on a page that opens by telling readers it lists organizations "currently authorized by the U.S. Department of Justice": "Immigrant Legal Aid Foundation" (New York, 1740 Broadway, (917) 647-2023) returns zero hits for its name, its street and its phone in both current rosters, while control searches for sibling New York organizations on the same page do hit; and "Dreamers2gether Inc." was listed with a Houston, Texas office at 5211 Brookglen Dr, (203) 437-7566, when the organization's only office on the roster is "Principal Office / 14 N Main Street / Waterbury, CT 06702 / (202) 313-1951". Presenting an unlisted organization as DOJ-recognized is the exact risk these pages' own notario-fraud warning is about. Three published addresses had also moved: American Organization for Immigrants is at 1800 NE Loop 410, Suite 310, San Antonio, TX 78217 (not 702 Donaldson Avenue); Community Response Coalition of Kentucky at 210 East High Street, #9, Lexington, KY 40507 (not 153 Patchen Drive); Catholic Social Services, Archdiocese of Philadelphia Immigration Legal Services at 4404 N 5th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19140 (not 222 N. 17th Street). Separately, every page said "As of the 2026-04-20 EOIR roster: 1,452 recognized organizations operate 1,564 offices nationwide." 1,452 was our own count of roster LISTINGS — one per organization per city — not organizations; the alphabetical roster's own header prints "Number of Recognized Organizations: 949". The sentence now gives both and says which is which. Every page also claimed the roster "is updated quarterly"; 09/06/26 is not a quarterly step from 04/20/26 and the roster PDF says nothing about cadence, so the pages now tell readers to check the "Report Last Updated" date the file prints at the top. The parser was fixed to read that date out of the PDF instead of carrying a hardcoded one, and the immigration-court legal-deserts join that reads this dataset was rebuilt, which moved Louisiana from 7 recognized nonprofits to 6 and its ratio from 1.8 to 1.5 per court.
September 10, 2026
Correction: we told parents they must prove their own immigration status to get a Social Security number for their US-born child — SSA asks for identity and relationship, not status
The 10 Social Security pages (5 EN + 5 ES) listed "Parent's proof of status (USC, LPR, or eligible status)" among the documents needed for a newborn's SSN. SSA's own publication for citizen children, EN-05-10023, says: "No matter where you apply, you will need to: Show us original documents proving your child's: U.S. citizenship. Age. Identity. Show us documents proving your identity and your relationship to your child." Nowhere does SSA ask a parent for immigration status — and the same page's own FAQ already said status is not a factor, so the page contradicted itself. The practical harm is specific: an undocumented parent reading our document list would conclude their US-citizen baby cannot get a number. Four more claims on the same pages were repaired against SSA. The processing table ("Online: 2-3 weeks / By mail: 4-6 weeks / In person: same appointment or 2-3 weeks") is replaced by SSA's single published figure — "Once your application is approved, you'll receive a Social Security card with your number on it by mail in 5 to 10 business days" — and by SSA's statement on the replacement page that "Your local Social Security office cannot print one for you," which kills the same-appointment claim. "Online: ssa.gov/forms" is replaced by how SSA says the online path works: start at ssa.gov/number-card, then finish at a local office; ssa.gov/forms is only where Form SS-5 is printed. "The 2023 Inflation Reduction Act expanded SSA staffing" was deleted: the enacted law, Public Law 117-169, was signed August 16, 2022, not 2023, and a full-text search of it returns zero occurrences of "Social Security Administration". "Approximately 5 million new SSN cards in FY 2024 and approximately 13 million name-change requests" was deleted as untraceable — the page's only cited source was the bare SSA homepage. And the SSA Inspector General fraud number we printed, 1-800-269-0271, appears nowhere on oig.ssa.gov's own reporting or scam-awareness pages, so it was replaced with the OIG's online reporting form. The generator scripts that stamp these blocks were corrected in the same pass.
September 10, 2026
Correction: we said the Social Security office that handles your case sits in your own country — for 9 of 12 it is in a third country, and Cuba cannot be paid at all
All 24 Social Security totalization pages (12 EN + 12 ES) told readers that "if you return to live in <country>" there is a dedicated Federal Benefits Unit at the US consulate there. SSA's own roster (ssa.gov/foreign/foreign.htm, read September 10, 2026) says otherwise for nine of the twelve: Cuba and Colombia are served from the US Embassy in Santo Domingo; Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua from San Jose, Costa Rica; Peru and Venezuela from Buenos Aires. Only Argentina, Mexico and the Dominican Republic have an FBU inside the country. Each page now names the office SSA actually lists, with its phone and email. The Cuba page also gained the fact it was silent on: SSA Handbook 1849 makes Cuba a US Treasury restricted country, so a non-citizen who lives there loses every withheld payment permanently. Same pass: the quarter-of-coverage figure moved from a two-year-stale $1,730 (2024) to $1,890, SSA's 2026 amount.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the FATCA threshold had only one half of the IRS test — a balance that peaked mid-year still requires Form 8938
The 24 country tax pages (12 EN + 12 ES) gave the Form 8938 thresholds as "Single: $50,000 at year-end / Married filing jointly: $100,000 at year-end". The IRS states TWO prongs and either one triggers the form: more than $50,000 on the last day of the year OR more than $75,000 at any time during it (single), and $100,000 / $150,000 married filing jointly. A reader whose foreign balance hit $80,000 in July and $40,000 on December 31 would have concluded nothing was due; IRC 6038D carries a $10,000 penalty. The 28 expat country pages carried the mirror-image error — quoting the in-US thresholds to readers living abroad, where the figures are $200,000/$300,000 and $400,000/$600,000. Both are fixed, along with the generator that produced them. Same pass: the US-Chile tax treaty entered into force December 19, 2023 (US Treasury), not 2016; the un-substituted "if <country> has NO tax treaty" block was deleted from the Mexico and Venezuela pages, which say two paragraphs earlier that both have one; El Salvador's territorial system replaced a claim that it taxes your US wages; and Cuba's 2019 Constitution (art. 36) replaced the pre-2019 rule that naturalising costs you Cuban citizenship.
September 10, 2026
Correction: a TPS termination takes effect no earlier than 60 days after publication, not the 6-18 months our 24 country pages said
Every TPS country page (12 EN + 12 ES) said "termination notices typically take effect 6-18 months after Federal Register publication". The statute says the opposite kind of thing: a termination may not take effect EARLIER than 60 days after the notice is published, or the existing expiration date if that is later — INA 244(b)(3)(B), 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(3)(B), quoted in the Yemen termination notice at 91 FR 10402. The 6-18 months figure is the length of an initial designation, stated correctly six lines above on the same pages. The pages also listed "8 countries" as terminated, omitting Honduras — which each Honduras page's own headline calls terminated — and Nicaragua, Nepal, Afghanistan and Cameroon; the list is now USCIS's own Countries Previously Designated roster of 15. Two more fixes in the same block: Haiti's holder count matches the site's dataset at roughly 330,735 rather than "500,000+", and the advance-parole paragraph now names the non-waivable H.R.1 parole fee ($1,020 for FY2026) that attaches on top of the $630 filing fee. Cancellation of removal now states all four elements of 8 U.S.C. 1229b(b)(1), including the exceptional-and-extremely-unusual-hardship test the old wording dropped.
September 10, 2026
Correction: Guatemala's pensionado residency is permanent from the start — our pages invented a temporary card and a five-year wait
The Guatemala Pensionado Visa pages (EN + ES) walked a retiree through a "Temporary Residence Card, valid 2 years and renewable" and told them they would become eligible for permanent residency "after 5 years total". The Instituto Guatemalteco de Migracion lists rentista/pensionado under Residencia PERMANENTE: $400 one-time, no guarantor, and income continuity re-proven every 5 years. The five-years-as-a-temporary-resident route is a separate IGM category that costs $700. Both pages now follow IGM's own phases: file with the $25 order, pay the $400 residency fee 24 hours before the biometrics appointment, then apply at RENAP for the DPI, which IGM calls the final mandatory step. The "plus an annual fee" line is gone: IGM publishes no annual fee for this residency.
September 10, 2026
Correction: 146 ICE facility pages sent families to the wrong phone number for a detained relative
Every ICE detention facility page mapped ICE's "Facility Main Phone" onto two different instructions — how to ask whether someone is held there, and how to leave an urgent message for a detainee. ICE publishes those as separate numbers at many facilities, sometimes an ERO field-office line, sometimes a contractor line. All 157 facility pages were re-read against ICE's own "Contacting a Detainee" block on September 10, 2026 (156 returned a page): at 51 facilities the detainee-information line differs from the number our page gave, and at 34 the urgent-message line does. Each page now carries the numbers ICE actually publishes, in separate rows. Three examples from the sweep: Stewart (Lumpkin, GA) pointed at (404) 893-1210, which is the Atlanta ERO field office, not the facility's (229) 838-5000; Freeborn County (MN) gave (507) 377-5200 for both, where ICE publishes (612) 409-7799 for information and (507) 377-5093 for messages; Broome County (NY) gave (607) 778-1174 where ICE publishes (607) 778-6018 and (607) 778-6439.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the Batavia Immigration Court closed on July 24, 2026 — our New York pages still listed it as operating
EOIR's administrative control list states: "The Batavia Immigration Court closed at the close of business on July 24, 2026. Any matter relating to a case heard at that court is now under the jurisdiction of the Buffalo Immigration Court." Our New York court pages still counted six operating courts, published Batavia's address and phone, and carried a judge table for it; Judge Brian Counihan now appears on the Buffalo list. Both the state pages and the standalone Batavia court pages (EN + ES) now lead with the closure. Found while re-pulling the judge / Webex / telephonic-access-code tables on all 30 immigration-court state pages from EOIR's live listing — those tables were stamped "EOIR-verified, 2026-05-26" and the drift was real: Stephanie Arrache and James K. Glober moved from Salt Lake City to Concord, Andre Carman and Jeremy A. Rovinsky from Denver and Aurora to Concord, Illya-Karina Bonet and Xavier Racine from Sterling to Miami, Kristie Anne Padron to Orlando, and Howard Hom to Honolulu, while judges actually sitting were missing from our tables.
September 10, 2026
Correction: H.R.1 court fees hit EOIR filings from February 1, 2026 — 106 pages gave the USCIS rule's date instead
53 English and 53 Spanish pages said "H.R.1 / OBBBA has applied fees to some EOIR filings since 2026-05-29". That is the effective date of the USCIS rule (FR 2026-08333, published April 29, 2026), not EOIR's. For EOIR the dates are February 1, 2026 for the FY2026 OBBBA amounts (FR 2026-01012) and June 11, 2026 for the Department of Justice's own EOIR fee rule (FR 2026-11692) — which is what the site's own hr1_fees.json already recorded. Verified against the Federal Register API on September 10, 2026. Separately, four hub pages called H.R.1 the "2026" law: it is Public Law 119-21, signed July 4, 2025; what happened in 2026 was the FY2026 inflation adjustment.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the ITIN timeline and the IRS payment-plan fees were both wrong — and the middle-digit expiration schedule is obsolete
Thirty-one pages said an ITIN takes "7-11 weeks during peak season and 6-8 weeks otherwise". Both halves are wrong. The IRS says: allow 7 weeks, and 9-11 weeks if you apply during tax season (January 15 to April 30) or from overseas. A February filer budgeting 7 weeks can miss the April deadline. The site's own status-checking page already carried the correct wording, so the corpus contradicted itself. Same pass, on the twelve IRS notice-code pages: long-term installment agreements are $29 online with direct debit ($107 by phone, mail or in person, waived for low-income filers) and $69 online without ($178 otherwise, $43 low-income) — not "$31 online, $130 non-direct-debit". And the ITIN middle-digit expiration schedule was replaced with the only rule the IRS still publishes: an ITIN not used on a federal return for any 3 consecutive years expires on December 31 after the third year.
September 10, 2026
Correction: a state's BIA-recognized "organization" count was really an office count — New York has 116 organizations, not 151
The 96 BIA-recognized-help pages (48 EN + 48 ES) and the 48 ICE ERO field-office hub pages counted rows in the EOIR Recognition & Accreditation Roster as organizations. Rows are office locations: New York has 151 rows but 116 distinct organizations, Minnesota 22 rows and 15 organizations, Wisconsin 24 and 17. Each page's own national paragraph already drew the distinction — "1,452 recognized organizations operate 1,564 offices" — so the page refuted itself. Every count is recomputed from the roster dataset the tables render from, both numbers are now stated, and the generator is corrected so a rebuild cannot restore the error. This is the same defect class as the LSC-roster error corrected on September 5.
September 10, 2026
Correction: we claimed 14 banks "generally accept ITIN" without a source, and told readers to visit branches that do not exist in their state
The by-state ITIN banking pages asserted "generally accept ITIN for opening checking and savings accounts" about twenty named banks. The hub they defer to says its table is built from each institution's own current requirements, and that verified table contains only Varo, SoFi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Chase and most credit unions. TD Bank, PNC, Truist, Huntington, KeyBank, M&T, Comerica, Citizens, Regions, Santander, Capital One, Frost, Commerce, Bremer and Associated appear nowhere in it, and the by-state pages cited no bank page at all — while the unsourced claim was also in the meta description that shows in the search result. Rows for banks we could not verify now say exactly that. Separately, the templated FAQ named "Bank of America, Wells Fargo" in every state; it is now written per state from FDIC branch counts, so Mississippi reads "Wells Fargo has 9 branches, Chase has 8; Bank of America has none" instead of pointing at a bank with no branches in the state.
September 10, 2026
Correction: pages promised automatic monthly updates that no longer run, and a "90-day review cycle" the corpus does not meet
Four surfaces advertised automation that stopped working. The Visa Bulletin page title said "auto-updated" and its body said the tables "auto-update monthly" — travel.state.gov blocks automated fetches, which is why the September 7 fix recorded that the bulletin is now re-read by hand in a browser; that fix reached the shortcode but not the title or the body. The movement page said it diffs "the current bulletin against last month's automatically" while its dataset was still comparing August with July. The datasets hub said visa interview waits "refresh daily by automated pipeline" when the fetch has been blocked since July 2026. And the ICE detention-population page promised a refresh "about every two weeks" and served a July 11 snapshot as "right now" — ICE's FY2026 link still resolves to the same July 20, 2026 file, checked September 10. The homepage's "kept current on our 90-day review cycle" is now stated as an aim, since 1,853 of 5,370 dated pages are older than that.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the IRS-ICE data-sharing story had a September 8 ending our tax pages did not carry
The tax hub answered "is it safe to file if I'm undocumented?" by saying information-sharing between federal agencies "can change over time" — an abstract hedge past a decided history. On September 8, 2026 the D.C. Circuit decided Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS, No. 26-5006 (Millett, Pillard and Wilkins; opinion by Judge Pillard), affirming the district court's stay of the IRS's bulk Data-Exchange Procedure and its injunction against further disclosures without notice to the court. The opinion records that ICE's Acting Director asked the IRS on June 27, 2025 for the last known address of 1.28 million people, and that the IRS had turned over more than 47,000 records before the district court stopped it. The hub pages, the litigation dataset and the case pages now carry it — along with what the ruling does NOT do: it is a preliminary injunction, not a final judgment, and it does not disturb the separate February 24, 2026 ruling that a properly-supported individual address request tied to a criminal investigation can stand.
September 10, 2026
Correction: eight smaller factual errors — Tennessee's LLC deadline, Kansas and Oklahoma detained courts, a Florida ICE site ICE has delisted, and more
Tennessee: the LLC annual report is due the first day of the fourth month after the close of the LLC's FISCAL YEAR — April 1 for a calendar-year LLC — not after the formation anniversary (Tenn. Code Ann. 48-249-1017(c)); anchoring it to the anniversary makes a spring-formed LLC file months late. Tennessee again: "No state income tax - only taxes dividends/interest (Hall Tax repealed)" contradicted itself; the Hall tax is fully repealed from January 1, 2021. Kansas and Oklahoma: EOIR gives Kansas City and Dallas the NON-DETAINED cases; several Kansas and Oklahoma jails sit under the Aurora, Colorado court and Kay County under Otero, New Mexico. Florida: ICE's directory no longer lists Florida Soft Sided Facility South and its ICE page returns a 404, so the state count is 7, not 8. The signatures interim final rule: an N-600 may only be rejected, never denied, when an invalid signature is the only defect, and the asylum fee is retained even on rejection. California's court page was the last one still publishing a "3 to 12 months" continuance and a "$1,500 to $50,000+" bond range; 8 U.S.C. 1226(a)(2)(A) sets $1,500 as a floor with no maximum. Mint Mobile's data tiers are 6GB/17GB/23GB/Unlimited, and the "no ID required" column, asserted about six carriers with two sources on the page, is now the claim we can actually support: prepaid, no credit check. The ITIN-mortgage pages said one lender goes below a 10% down payment; the table beneath them lists two.
September 10, 2026
Correction: Ecuador's passport fee is USD $90, not $70 — and the consulate contact block was OpenStreetMap data, not the ministry's
Twenty-two Ecuador pages priced an adult passport at $70 with $35 for seniors and people with disabilities. Ecuador's official trámite catalogue publishes “USD $90,00 no grava IVA”, a 50% reduction for people 65 and over ($45) and a 100% waiver for a disability of 30% or more; the embassy's own Washington, D.C. passport page publishes the same $90 / $45. The New York consulate-general's requirements page still says $70/$35, so both figures are now quoted with the advice to confirm at the office where you are booked. The carné de identificación consular is $20 — that one checked out, and now carries its source. Separately, all 20 Ecuador consulate pages (EN + ES) had their address, phone, e-mail, jurisdiction and ‘official website’ replaced with the values the Ecuadorian foreign ministry publishes in its own directory of missions in the United States: Miami's address was wrong (117 NW 42nd Ave, not 1395 Brickell Ave), Atlanta's address, phone, e-mail and jurisdiction were all wrong, and Atlanta's ‘official website’ pointed at consuladoecuador-atlanta.org, an unregistered domain. The country hub's ‘12 consular offices across 10 states’ is now stated as the ministry states it — 12 offices across 10 states and D.C., of which this directory covers 10.
September 10, 2026
Correction: a consular ID still will not get you through a TSA checkpoint — but ‘cannot board domestic flights’ stopped being the whole story on February 1, 2026
Fourteen consular-ID pages (the matrícula consular hubs plus the Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua country pages, EN + ES) said flatly that a consular ID “cannot be used to board domestic US flights.” TSA's identification page now says that since February 1, 2026, a traveler who cannot present an acceptable ID “will have the option to pay a $45 fee to use TSA ConfirmID” so TSA can attempt to verify their identity — and is refused if it cannot. The pages now say what is true: the consular ID is not on TSA's acceptable-ID list, a valid foreign passport is, and ConfirmID is the $45 fallback. Same page also corrected: ‘Most accept ITIN-only payment’, which appeared on 51 consulate pages and describes nothing — an ITIN is a tax-processing number, not a way to pay.
September 10, 2026
Correction: dead and mislabelled consulate links — Peru's site does not answer on plain HTTP, and a phone number we gave for State Department visa questions is published nowhere
Twenty-six Peru pages and the Peru dataset linked the consulate network as http://www.consulado.pe/… . Nothing answers on port 80: every one of those links was dead for every reader who clicked it, and the short forms redirect back to the failing HTTP URL. They now point at the HTTPS …/Paginas/Inicio.aspx paths, each checked live today. Twenty-four ‘from country’ pages listed ‘1-800-373-3340’ as State Department visa information; that number appears nowhere on state.gov or travel.state.gov, and the department's own visa-contacts table lists no telephone line at all, so it was removed in favour of the National Visa Center inquiry form and the post holding your case. Two Guatemala pages published ‘https://www.consulguat’ — a truncated scrape artifact with no top-level domain — as an official website. Thirteen consulate pages and their Spanish twins were typed ‘Permanent Mission’ in the data, which is a mission accredited to the UN or OAS and issues no documents; a duplicate-slug collision in the country datasets had overwritten ‘Consulate-General’ and ‘Embassy’ with it, and the label had reached the FAQ questions and the by-state directory listings. Finally, all 29 Guatemalan records in the consulate dataset carried the Miami office's phone number; the copied value was cleared from the 28 that are not Miami.
September 10, 2026
Correction: a Federal Register proposal we still called ‘not yet binding’ became a final rule in March, and the policy-changes hub was not an archive of ‘all’ immigration rules
Our page for the 2025 Diversity Immigrant Visa vetting proposal (FR doc 2025-14784) told readers a ‘Proposed Rule’ is not yet binding. The Department of State finalised it under the same RIN: FR doc 2026-04737, published March 11, 2026, effective April 10, 2026. The page now opens with that, and the shared ‘Is this rule currently in effect?’ answer on all nine proposal pages now tells readers to check for a later final rule rather than stopping at the document type. Of the nine, two have in fact been finalised — the DV rule and public charge (FR doc 2026-14539, effective September 18, 2026, already flagged on its page); the other seven remain proposals. The hub's own line claimed ‘all immigration-related rules and proposed rules since 2025 … 34 documents’; the Federal Register carries 48 under that tag, and the 34 are our hand-picked archive, which is now what the page says.
September 10, 2026
Correction: you cannot buy expedited US passport processing from abroad — 22 CFR 22.1 says the $60 expedite fee is ‘not applicable abroad’
The renew-your-US-passport-from-abroad guide (EN + ES) offered ‘expedited at consulate: $60-$150 USD additional’ and a 2-3 week expedited processing time. The State Department's schedule of fees is explicit that Item 3, expedited service, covers processing within the published expedited period and/or in-person service at a U.S. Passport Agency — ‘(not applicable abroad)’ — for a flat $60. What a post abroad can sell is faster return shipping, which shortens delivery and not adjudication; a genuine life-or-death emergency is handled by the post outside the fee schedule. Both pages now say that, and the fee heading is dated to the regulation instead of ‘2024-2025’.
September 10, 2026
Correction: eight stale or wrong figures across the expat guides — FBAR penalties, Portugal’s 10-year citizenship rule, Panama’s pensioner discounts, Selective Service and the “free” Mexican residency visa
A fact-check of the expat cluster corrected 66 pages (EN + ES). FBAR penalties were quoted at the un-adjusted statutory figures: the inflation-adjusted maximums in 31 CFR 1010.821 are $16,536 non-willful and $165,353 willful for penalties assessed on or after January 17, 2025 (90 FR 5630), and Bittner v. United States (February 28, 2023) held the non-willful penalty accrues per report, not per account. The streamlined-procedures section promised “no FBAR penalty” to everyone; that is only the Foreign Offshore track — filers living in the US pay the Title 26 miscellaneous offshore penalty of 5 percent of their highest aggregate foreign asset value. Portugal’s D8 page still showed a 5-year path to citizenship: Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 (Diário da República, 18 May 2026, in force the next day) sets 7 years for Portuguese-speaking and EU nationals and 10 years for everyone else, with the old rule kept only for applications already pending. Panama’s pensioner discounts were listed as 50% off restaurants; Ley 6 de 1987 gives 25% on a restaurant meal (15% at fast-food franchises) and reserves 50% for cinema, theatre and sports admission. The Selective Service row said “male citizens”, when 50 U.S.C. § 3802(a) reaches every man living in the US aged 18-25 — permanent residents, refugees, asylees, parolees and undocumented men included — and exempts only men holding a valid nonimmigrant status. A cost FAQ on 28 pages called Mexican temporary residency free; SRE requires the applicant to pay the derechos set by the Ley Federal de Derechos. Also fixed: the child passport fee (a child under 16 cannot use DS-82 at all and pays $100 plus the $35 acceptance fee), a dead Travel.State.Gov “Renew Abroad” link, Guatemala’s rentista/pensionado residency (the regulation bars any paid activity, with no exception for owning a business), Germany’s freelancer permit (Berlin exempts five nationalities from proving retirement savings and the US is not one of them), and a duplicate YAML key that was silently dropping sources from 24 Spanish LLC pages.
September 10, 2026
Correction: the ICE detention pages sent families to the wrong phone number, and told them ordinary mail is never read
Every ICE detention facility page (EN + ES) was built from ICE's “Facility Main Phone” footer field, which at many facilities is a switchboard that does not answer detainee questions. ICE names a separate detainee-information line, and often a third urgent-message line, inside the “Contacting a Detainee” block on each facility's own page — Flagler County publishes (386) 313-2200 for information and (386) 313-2213 for an urgent message, not the (386) 437-4116 we printed; Winn Correctional publishes (318) 628-2354 for urgent messages; Karnes County publishes (830) 254-2000, not the (830) 254-2500 legal-scheduling line. All 157 facilities were re-read at ice.gov on September 10, 2026 and banked as a dataset with ICE's own sentence quoted per facility, and 300 pages now carry the right numbers in the FAQ, the quick-reference table and the contact paragraph. The mail sentence was also wrong: “all incoming mail is inspected for contraband — it is opened and screened but not read. Detainees may send and seal their own outgoing mail” appeared on 302 pages. ICE's National Detention Standards, Revised 2019, section 5.1(E) says outgoing general mail may be inspected and read where it is addressed to another detainee or staff have reason to believe it threatens facility security, endangers someone or could facilitate criminal activity; the not-read guarantee covers only special correspondence — attorneys, courts, government offices, embassies and consulates, Congress and the news media — which is opened in the detainee's presence and inspected for contraband alone. Each page now quotes both surfaces: what that facility's own ICE page says, and what the national standard says. Two more fixes: Florida Soft Sided Facility South has been removed from ICE's directory and its page returns a 404, now stated on the Spanish page as it already was on the English one; and the nine ERO field-office hubs that said cases are heard at EOIR immigration courts in states where EOIR seats none — Oklahoma, Wyoming, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Kansas, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Idaho, Guam, Alaska, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota — now name only the states that hold a court and say where the rest are docketed.
September 9, 2026
Kansas in-state tuition for undocumented students permanently blocked — and DOJ sues eight more jurisdictions
On September 9, 2026 a federal district court (D. Kan., USA v. Kansas, 5:26-cv-4066) struck down Kansas's 2004 tuition equity law (KSA 76-731a) after approving an agreement between DOJ and the Kansas attorney general, and denied efforts by Governor Laura Kelly and affected students to intervene and defend the law. Local reporting (KCUR, Sept. 11) said the injunction took effect immediately, though how campuses would apply it was unclear. In September 2026 a student association represented by MALDEF appealed the denial of its bid to intervene to the Tenth Circuit. Separately, DOJ sued New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon and Washington on August 27, 2026 and Hawaii, the District of Columbia, Arkansas and Utah on September 10, 2026, bringing the total to 24 states plus D.C. that have faced federal tuition-equity suits (tracker last updated September 17, 2026). Those laws remain in effect while their cases proceed.
September 9, 2026
ICE detention pages: we said all facilities follow one set of standards, published a DHS complaint address DHS does not publish, and missed nine facilities ICE lists
A source-by-source re-read of the ICE detention cluster on Sept. 9, 2026 corrected seven things. (1) Every by-state page said the four facility types "share the same ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS)". ICE says the opposite: "[r]egardless of whether detention facilities are owned and operated by ICE, a state or local entity, or a contractor, all facilities housing ICE detainees must comply with one of several sets of detention standards" — 2026 NDS, 2025 NDS, NDIDS, PBNDS 2011, NDS 2019, Family Residential Standards 2020, or Temporary Housing Standards. The pages now quote that list and say ICE's per-facility pages do not generally reveal which set applies, so rules can differ between two facilities in one state. (2) 302 pages gave civil.rights@hq.dhs.gov as the DHS civil-rights complaint address. No DHS page publishes it. DHS's own Make a Civil Rights Complaint page publishes one channel — the portal at engage.dhs.gov/crcl-complaint — and CBP publishes CRCL@dhs.gov, fax (202) 401-4708 and a postal address for the same office; all pages now carry those. (3) ICE's directory lists three facilities in North Dakota, not the two we had: Ward County Detention Center, 204 Front Street SE, Minot, ND 58701, (701) 857-6535. Re-running the ?state= check for all 41 states ICE lists found eight more missing facilities (Iowa 3, Nebraska 2, Minnesota 1, South Dakota 1, Northern Mariana Islands 1); all nine now have English and Spanish pages. (4) Camp East Montana's phone was a digit transposition on six pages — ICE publishes (915) 280-2270, not (915) 208-0980. (5) The Laredo facility page printed ZIP 78401, which USPS assigns to Corpus Christi, on a page that tells readers where to mail letters and commissary money; operator CoreCivic publishes 78041 twice, including as the correspondence address, and the dataset now carries an override so a re-scrape of ice.gov, which still prints 78401, cannot reintroduce it. (6) All 24 ERO field-office pages named the wrong city for free legal help — South Dakota rendered the literal string "Principal Office" and Texas said Abilene where Houston has the most offices. (7) The claim that PBNDS requires ICE to update the Online Detainee Locator System within 8 hours was unfounded: PBNDS 2011 standard 7.4 never mentions ODLS, and ICE publishes no refresh interval for it anywhere. Pages now keep the 24-hour attorney-notification rule, which 7.4 does contain, and tell families to search repeatedly instead of trusting one empty result. Webb County's detainee-information and urgent-message numbers were also corrected to the two lines ICE publishes, (956) 615-9720 and (956) 729-4000.
September 9, 2026
EEOC charge deadline: our 104 workplace-rights pages said 180 days; the EEOC's own office pages say 300 in 49 of the 52 jurisdictions we cover
The EEOC gives most workers 300 days, not 180, to file a charge of discrimination. Read off all 53 EEOC field-office timeliness tabs on September 9, 2026, the 300-day deadline applies in 49 of the 52 jurisdictions this matrix covers; Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi are the three at 180 days. Until today every page of our EEOC workplace-rights matrix said the opposite, in a line now retired: it called the deadline "generally 180 days" and treated the 300-day extension as something only "some states (NY, CA)" offered. The Denver Field Office states the rule: "This 180-day filing deadline is extended to 300 days if there is a state or local anti-discrimination law that covers the location of the alleged harm and the basis for the charge." A reader at day 200 could have read the old wording and concluded they were out of time. The number is now rendered per state from website/data/eeoc_field_offices.json through a new eeoc-deadline shortcode, so it can never be a literal in the markdown again, and the basis-specific exceptions ride with it (Indiana: 180 days for age claims, per the Indianapolis District Office; South Dakota: the same, per Minneapolis; North Carolina, DC and Puerto Rico carry their own caveats where EEOC's offices describe them differently). Two other claims on the same pages were corrected against the EEOC's 2002 rescission notice. What the agency commits to on immigration status is this, in full: it "will not, on its own initiative, inquire into a worker's immigration status" and will not "consider an individual's immigration status when examining the underlying merits of a charge." That is policy and practice, not an absolute legal guarantee, it does not bind an employer, and it says nothing about an immigration case - so the retired promise that the EEOC "does NOT report your immigration status to ICE or any other agency" and that filing "doesn't affect your immigration case or risk deportation" was broader than anything the EEOC publishes. And we promised back pay and reinstatement to an audience the pages address as undocumented; after Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB (2002) the EEOC rescinded its 1999 remedies guidance, writing that "[t]he Court's holding bars an award of backpay under the NLRA to an undocumented worker for any period following the termination of his or her employment," and has published no replacement since. Coverage itself is untouched: the EEOC says Hoffman "in no way calls into question the settled principle that undocumented workers are covered by the federal employment discrimination statutes." Office contacts were re-read the same day against each /location page: eight director changes (including Pittsburgh, where we still printed Deborah Kane and the page now names Karen McDonough, Acting Director), five regional-attorney changes, and two phone corrections - Milwaukee, and the nine-digit "1-800-669-400" that EEOC's own Pittsburgh page publishes, now printed as 1-800-669-4000 / 412-588-6905. On the same hub, the Justice Department contact was corrected: IER's own page publishes two hotlines and no email address (worker 1-800-255-7688, employer 1-800-255-8155), so the pre-2017 "osc.crt@usdoj.gov" we carried was dropped rather than reprinted. The FY 2024 charge and monetary-relief figures on the hub were re-read against eeoc.gov/2024-annual-performance-report the same day and are unchanged, as are the $50,000-$300,000 compensatory/punitive caps; the one statement that moved was back pay, now stated as the statute states it (42 U.S.C. 2000e-5(g)(1): liability cannot accrue from a date more than two years before the charge was filed) rather than as a flat "up to 2 years".
September 9, 2026
Medicaid and CHIP: on October 1, 2026 federal funding stops for refugees, asylees, parolees and trafficking victims
Section 71109 of Public Law 119-21 does not change who a state may call eligible — it changes who the federal government will pay for, and CMS explained it to the states in letter SHO #26-001 (April 8, 2026). Beginning October 1, 2026, federal financial participation for full Medicaid and CHIP benefits is limited to U.S. citizens and nationals, lawful permanent residents, Cuban/Haitian entrants and COFA migrants who reside in one of the 50 states, DC or a territory. CMS: “Given these changes, beginning October 1, 2026, with limited exceptions, FFP will no longer be available for full Medicaid or CHIP benefits furnished to qualified noncitizens who are not also FFP-eligible noncitizens (e.g., asylees, refugees, parolees, or victims of trafficking).” There are only three exceptions: Emergency Medicaid, which CMS says is unchanged; the CHIPRA 214 option, under which CMS says a lawfully residing child or pregnant woman “(e.g., a refugee)” can still be determined eligible where the state elected it; and Health Services Initiatives. CMS will not require states to replace the lost federal money and says it would not treat 100 percent state-funded coverage as Medicaid or CHIP; it publishes no list of which states will keep paying, and we do not infer it. Our CHIP and Medicaid hubs and all 104 CHIP and 104 Medicaid state pages now carry both halves of each eligibility line — what is true through September 30, 2026 and what changes on October 1. In the same pass we recounted the CHIPRA 214 option from CMS’s own table (updated April 2, 2026): children in 37 states, DC and 3 territories; pregnant women in 31 states, DC and 3 territories — our pages had said “31 states + DC” for children. We also corrected three state-program cells that were two budget cycles stale (Illinois HBIA closed July 1, 2025; Minnesota undocumented adults 18+ ineligible since January 1, 2026; California adults 19+ applying on or after January 1, 2026 limited to pregnancy-related and emergency scope), replaced a 2023-derived income range with the 2026 poverty guidelines, stopped telling Puerto Rico readers to use Healthcare.gov (healthcare.gov itself says territory residents are not eligible to use the Marketplace), and stopped calling CHIP vision coverage a federal requirement — 42 U.S.C. 1397cc makes dental mandatory and lists vision, hearing and prescription drugs as optional “additional services.”
September 9, 2026
El Salvador TPS: USCIS says protection continues pending an announcement, E-Verify still says it terminates Sept. 9, and the Federal Register is silent
On the designation date itself, the two official surfaces say different things and we do not say which one controls. USCIS has NOT archived the El Salvador TPS page: both the USCIS TPS page and the El Salvador country page carry this alert, checked Sept. 9, 2026 — “An announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time. Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection including work authorization.” The page still lists “TPS Continued Through: Sept. 9, 2026” and “EAD Auto-Extended by FRN Through: March 9, 2026” unchanged. E-Verify’s guidance of Sept. 3, 2026 is still its newest El Salvador item and tells employers the designation “and related benefits are set to terminate on Sept. 9, 2026,” and to enter Sept. 9, 2026 on Form I-9. No Federal Register document of any kind exists — no extension, no redesignation, no termination — in the documents API (positive control: Lebanon’s 2026-10704 still returns) or on the public-inspection desk. Our pages now quote both sources verbatim with their dates, assert no end date and no continuation period, and separate status from proof of status: the statute extends a DESIGNATION, while a Federal Register notice is what extends an EAD for Form I-9. Our earlier wording on this point was retired corpus-wide: USCIS has published the alert quoted above.
September 9, 2026
Correction: West Virginia instruction permit is $7.50, not $5.00 — and the foreign-passport rule was overstated
Our West Virginia state-ID page listed the standard instruction permit at $5.00; that is the MOTORCYCLE instruction permit price. The WV DMV fee schedule lists the standard permit at $7.50 (both rows now shown). The same page said a foreign passport is accepted only with a U.S. visa; the DMV's document list requires the visa only if the applicant is from a country whose citizens the United States requires to obtain a visa. Four West Virginia DMV and one South Carolina Secretary of State source links that had gone dead were replaced with the agencies' current pages, and the $5-per-year identification-card fee is now cited to W. Va. Code 17B-2-1(f)(1)(C).
September 9, 2026
Proposed: Census Bureau would use tax records to set your "usual residence" and would not count most noncitizens for apportionment
The Census Bureau filed a proposed rule on September 9, 2026 (FR document 2026-18481, docket USBC-2026-0628), scheduled to publish September 10. Proposed 15 CFR 60.2(a) would define "usual residence" as the residence at which they "have lawfully spent the greatest number of days," and says it "should be consistent with, and evidenced by, their tax records (e.g., tax returns, W-2 forms)." Proposed 15 CFR 60.4 governs foreign citizens in the United States: those who are also US citizens or lawful permanent residents would be counted at their usual residence, and "all other citizens of foreign countries" are "not counted for apportionment"; the preamble proposes excluding "illegal aliens and aliens whose legal status is less durable and indefinite in length than lawful permanent resident status," and invites comment on whether other statuses are materially similar to LPR status. It also asks whether to add a legal-status question to the questionnaire. This is a proposal and nothing in it is in effect; it does not change anyone's obligation to file. Census responses stay confidential under 13 U.S.C. 9, which the rule does not amend and in fact relies on. The rule published in the Federal Register on September 10, 2026 with a printed comment deadline of October 13, 2026 (docket USBC-2026-0628 at regulations.gov).
September 9, 2026
Correction: our CHNV parole page pointed readers at the wrong proceeding — the Family Reunification Parole injunction is under appeal
Our CHNV humanitarian parole page told readers to watch a district-court summary-judgment motion, and said nothing about the appeal of the preliminary injunction that is the only thing currently blocking termination of Family Reunification Parole and its work authorization. That was the wrong milestone to hand someone whose work permit depends on it. What the docket actually shows: the government appealed to the First Circuit as Doe v. Mullin, Nos. 26-1314 and 26-1628 (the second docketed June 4, 2026 on notice of appeal doc. #304); on July 28, 2026 the court ordered the two consolidated for briefing and oral argument; and on July 29 it set the schedule, with the appellants' brief and appendix due September 8, 2026, the appellees' brief 30 days after service, and the reply 21 days after that. Merits briefing is underway now. We do not claim to know what happened on or after September 8: the public docket reproduction we can read was last retrieved July 29, 2026 and RECAP's newest entry is August 11, 2026, so neither shows whether the brief was filed on time or extended — the page says exactly that. The district-court motion remains fully briefed since December 8, 2025 with no ruling docketed. The FRP injunction remains in effect. Both language versions and the case dataset now carry the appeal, its docket numbers, the consolidation, the schedule and that limitation. Shipped alongside: the third-country-removals case now names its First Circuit docket (No. 26-1212, D.V.D. v. DHS, argued May 13, 2026) instead of "expedited appeal"; the DACA timeline records the July 10, 2026 order that is the newest entry on Judge Hanen's docket; and a Spanish-wording sweep replaced "por improcedente" with "por haber quedado sin objeto" in six places across four cases, because the first loses the mootness rationale and reads as a rejection on the merits.
September 8, 2026
Correction: USCIS DID act on Executive Order 14418 — we said it had published nothing, on 28 pages
Twenty-eight pages (14 EN + 14 ES) stated that USCIS, the Social Security Administration and the Justice Department "had published nothing as of September 5, 2026" about Executive Order 14418. That was false when we wrote it. DHS filed an interim final rule on September 4, 2026 at 4:15 pm EDT (FR doc 2026-18345, publishing September 9), and USCIS announced it the same day. The rule replaces "foreign diplomatic officer" with the broader "foreign government employee" — expressly covering embassy and consulate employees who are nationals of that country, which is our consulate audience — and lets such children register as lawful permanent residents. It is effective September 4, 2026 and applies only to children born on or after that date; it also updates Forms I-485 and G-325R. Critically, and this is the part that most protects readers: DHS states it will NOT implement the rule against members of the certified class in Casa Inc. v. Trump, No. 8:25-cv-00201 (D. Md.), while that preliminary injunction stands. All 28 pages now carry the rule, its effective date and scope, and the injunction carve-out. SSA and DOJ have still published nothing. Comments on the rule close about October 4, 2026.
September 8, 2026
Sudan and Ukraine TPS: USCIS is mailing notices that extend expired work permits to Oct. 19 — our pages implied they had lapsed
Our Sudan and Ukraine entries said only that "an EAD auto-extension ran through April 19, 2026; verify current EAD validity with the latest USCIS notice." A holder whose card expired after that date could read our page and conclude they had no work authorization. E-Verify guidance dated September 3, 2026 shows otherwise: USCIS is mailing individual notices extending expired TPS-based EADs to October 19, 2026, and for Form I-9 a qualifying A12 or C19 card plus that notice is valid List A proof through October 19, 2026. Qualifying card-expiry is on or after July 22, 2026 for Sudan and on or after April 20, 2026 for Ukraine. Both bulletins also state the designations are set to terminate October 19, 2026. This is the same omission we corrected for El Salvador; it is now fixed in tps_designations.json and tps_work_permits.json, EN and ES.
September 8, 2026
El Salvador TPS: E-Verify says it terminates Sept. 9, but no Federal Register notice exists — we now publish both halves
E-Verify guidance dated September 3, 2026 states that the El Salvador TPS designation "and related benefits are set to terminate on Sept. 9, 2026" and instructs employers to enter September 9, 2026 as the expiration date on Form I-9 and in E-Verify. At the same time, NO Federal Register notice exists — no extension, no redesignation and no termination — and nothing about El Salvador TPS sat on the FR public-inspection desk for the September 9 issue when we checked on September 8. That is a genuine gap, and the pages now report both halves instead of only one. The statutory backdrop: 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(3)(B) makes a termination effective no earlier than 60 days after a notice is published, and 1254a(b)(3)(C) extends a designation 6 months when the Secretary makes no timely determination (the deadline here fell about July 11, 2026). We can confirm nothing was PUBLISHED by then; we CANNOT confirm whether a determination was made, and the statute keys on the determination — so we assert no outcome and publish no computed end date. Two corrections to our earlier framing, both caught in cross-AI review: (1) the statute extends the DESIGNATION, while Lebanon's work permits were extended by the NOTICE itself ("Through this Federal Register notice, DHS automatically extends the validity of EADs") — so a statute alone is not what an employer enters into E-Verify, and the same gap reaches driver's-licence renewals and state benefits via SAVE; (2) the Lebanon analogy is weaker than it first appeared, because that notice was already on public inspection before its period ended ("FR Doc. 2026-10704 Filed 5-27-26; 11:15 am", printed May 29) whereas El Salvador's desk is empty. Reader guidance is now: plan around September 9, keep every document, do not quit on a rumor, do not tell an employer you are cleared to work past September 9, and get individual legal advice. Updated EN+ES: the El Salvador country page (rewritten section, callout, work FAQ and removal FAQ), the TPS-by-country hub, the TPS work-permit dataset page, and tps_designations.json.
September 6, 2026
Correction: El Salvador TPS work permits — USCIS no longer lists the July 22, 2026 date; pending renewals get a notice extending the EAD to September 9, 2026
The status box on our El Salvador TPS page (EN + ES) said USCIS listed EADs expiring March 9, 2025 as valid through July 22, 2026. USCIS updated its El Salvador TPS page on September 3, 2026 and that date no longer appears anywhere on it. The page now lists EADs as auto-extended by Federal Register notice through March 9, 2026, and says that TPS holders whose renewal EAD (category A12 or C19) is still pending receive an individual USCIS notice extending the EAD to September 9, 2026; with that notice, cards with a Card Expires date of March 9, 2025, June 30, 2024, December 31, 2022, October 4, 2021, January 4, 2021, January 2, 2020, September 9, 2019 or March 9, 2018 remain proof of work authorization through September 9, 2026. Our status box now says exactly that, matching the page body and FAQ. USCIS has published nothing about the period after September 9, 2026.
September 5, 2026
Correction: the H.R.1 car-loan interest deduction has no SSN requirement — ITIN pages said all four new deductions required one
Six ITIN tax pages (EN + ES) stated that the four new H.R.1 deductions — tips, overtime, car-loan interest and the senior deduction — all require a Social Security number. Three do: 26 U.S.C. §§ 224(d), 225(d) and 151(d)(5) each contain an SSN rule. The car-loan interest deduction, 26 U.S.C. § 163(h)(4), contains none: it requires the vehicle identification number on the return and a loan taken out after December 31, 2024 that is secured by a first lien on a new (first-use) vehicle bought for personal use with final assembly in the United States; interest is capped at $10,000 a year and reduced above $100,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($200,000 joint). The IRS final regulations (2026-18219, Federal Register September 8, 2026) also contain no SSN rule. The pages now state the three-of-four rule and describe the car-loan exception.
September 5, 2026
Correction: LSC civil legal aid directories reconciled with LSC's current grantee roster (7 states)
The state directories were built from LSC's service-area map snapshot of May 27, 2026, whose 2018 reporting year predates several mergers. Checked page by page against LSC's own grantee roster (lsc.gov/about-lsc/our-grantees) on September 5, 2026: Wisconsin still listed Judicare Legal Aid, which merged into Legal Action of Wisconsin on January 1, 2026; Minnesota listed Legal Services of Northwest Minnesota, now part of Justice North, and omitted Anishinabe Legal Services; Michigan omitted Michigan Indian Legal Services and Oklahoma omitted Oklahoma Indian Legal Services (Native American Basic Field grantees that LSC's map feed does not carry); Arkansas and Pennsylvania counted dissolved or merged organizations as current grantees; Tennessee counted one grantee twice because it holds two service areas. Each page now lists only current grantees, states the number of distinct organizations, and keeps former grantees in a labeled note with their 2018 figures. No 2018 figures were invented for the added grantees: LSC publishes none, and the cells say so.
September 4, 2026
Court pauses a third USCIS hold memo: Diversity Visa adjustment applications (PM-602-0193) — Medani v. Trump
On August 28, 2026 the Northern District of California, in Medani v. Trump, No. 26-cv-6332, temporarily vacated PM-602-0193 — the memo holding adjustment-of-status applications of FY-2026 Diversity Visa selectees — pending further litigation, ordered USCIS to resume ordinary adjudication of the plaintiffs' pending applications for the rest of the DV fiscal year, and certified a subclass of FY-2026 DV selectees and derivative beneficiaries subject to the hold. USCIS's September 4, 2026 alert says it strongly disagrees but will comply pending possible further review. Added to the standing hold-policies case page (EN + ES) and the litigation tracker.
September 4, 2026
State Department publishes its Executive Order 14418 implementation plan: a sworn parental attestation for a child's passport when neither parent is a U.S. citizen
On September 4, 2026 the State Department posted a three-page proposed Implementation Plan for Executive Order 14418 (prospective only, effective on publication, subject to modification) and marked its EO 14160 page superseded. For a child's U.S. passport where neither parent is a U.S. citizen, an attestation from each parent, under penalty of perjury, about whether either parent meets any of the order's conditions must be submitted; if it is missing it is requested on review, and if the answers confirm no condition is met adjudication continues. State reads 'foreign government employee' to include locally hired embassy or consulate staff who are nationals of the sending country, and generally to exclude, case by case, third-country nationals, contractors, state-owned-enterprise employees and personal employees of officials. Trump v. Barbara is unchanged: a child born in the United States is a citizen at birth. USCIS, SSA and DOJ had published nothing as of September 5. Updated: the birthright case page, know-your-rights on U.S.-citizen children, and the 12 register-your-U.S.-born-child consulate pages (EN + ES).
September 1, 2026
Correction: EOIR pending caseload is 3,469,569 (FY 2026 Q3), not "3.7 million as of FY 2024"
All 104 immigration-court-by-state pages (EN + ES) stated that EOIR had approximately 3.7 million pending cases as of FY 2024 and an average wait of 1,200-1,500 days from the Notice to Appear to the first hearing. EOIR's own adjudication statistics (Pending Cases, New Cases, and Total Completions, data generated July 24, 2026) show 3,924,993 pending at the end of FY 2024 and 3,469,569 at the end of the third quarter of FY 2026; EOIR publishes no per-court NTA-to-hearing wait. The paragraph now renders from a dataset built from that PDF.
September 1, 2026
Correction: Form I-131 advance parole takes months longer than the "5-8 months" we stated, and a CBP parole fee applies at the port of entry
The 66 traveling-to-your-country pages (EN + ES) gave a 5-8 month processing time for Form I-131. USCIS's own processing-times system shows 23 months for advance parole and 16 months for re-entry permits (80% of cases adjudicated in the past six months); the pages now embed that live table. The same pages omitted that the USCIS fee schedule (Form G-1055, edition 05/29/26) attaches the Pub. L. 119-21 immigration parole fee, collected by CBP each time the holder seeks parole at a port of entry unless an exception applies.
September 1, 2026
Correction: the OpenSky Secured Visa requires US citizenship or permanent residence, so it is not an option for most ITIN-only applicants
Our 104 ITIN-banking-by-state pages listed the OpenSky Secured Visa as available to all ITIN holders. The card's own disclosure (Capital Bank, N.A.) requires the applicant to be a United States citizen or permanent resident and carries a $35 annual fee. The pages and the credit-building guide now say so; the Capital One Quicksilver Secured, which Capital One lists as ITIN-eligible, remains.
September 1, 2026
The government asks the Supreme Court to decide the interior-arrest bond split — a petition, not a grant (Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, No. 26-104)
On July 23, 2026 the federal government filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit's decision that immigrants arrested in the interior are detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) — where an immigration judge can set bond — rather than under § 1225(b)(2)(A) mandatory detention. It is docketed as Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, No. 26-104, from Second Circuit No. 25-3141 (decided April 28, 2026), and the respondent's response was filed August 21, 2026. The Court has NOT granted certiorari: a petition is not a grant, the docket shows no conference date, and until the Court acts the detention rule in each circuit is unchanged. Three other things moved the split since our last review: the Eighth Circuit denied rehearing en banc and panel rehearing in Herrera Avila on June 17, 2026 and issued its mandate on June 25; the Tenth Circuit sided with the immigrants in Santillan Quiroz v. Mullin on June 30, 2026; and the Ninth Circuit did the same in Rodriguez Vazquez v. Bostock on July 30, 2026. The count is now five circuits for a bond hearing (2nd, 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th) against two for mandatory detention (5th, 8th), with the Seventh Circuit's decision failing to command a majority. One caveat on that count: the Eleventh Circuit withheld its mandate on May 13, 2026 and the government's petition for rehearing en banc, filed June 22, 2026, was still pending as of that docket's August 28, 2026 update — so its ruling is not final. Separately, the Supreme Court has set Genalo v. Black, No. 25-886, for oral argument on Tuesday, October 13, 2026 — that case is about prolonged detention under § 1226(c) and will not by itself resolve this split.
August 28, 2026
Second court blocks the USCIS asylum/benefits hold memos — N.D. California enjoins PM 602-0192 and PM 602-0194, certifies a class (Red Eagle Law v. Edlow)
A second court has now blocked the same policy memos. On August 24, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order in Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Edlow, No. 26-cv-04850-CRB, enjoining PM 602-0192 and PM 602-0194 and ordering USCIS to adjudicate applications in the normal course. The court also certified a class: citizens or natives of the 39 countries listed in Proclamations 10949 or 10998 (or the Palestinian Authority) who have a pending asylum application (Form I-589) or another pending USCIS benefit application that was subject to the hold memos and had not received a final decision as of the certification date. USCIS updated its 'Court Order on Hold Policies' alert on August 28, 2026: it says it strongly disagrees with the order but will follow its terms pending possible further judicial review, and will issue updated instructions. USCIS has not said how this injunction interacts with the First Circuit's August 14 order reviving the Comprehensive Re-Review in the Dorcas appeal.
August 25, 2026
CBP establishes four Customs-Enforcement Areas at sea — South Florida, Gulf Coast of Texas, Central/Southern California and Puerto Rico
Effective August 25, 2026, the CBP Commissioner declared four Customs-Enforcement Areas under the Anti-Smuggling Act of 1935 (19 U.S.C. 1701), published as CBP Dec. No. 26-17 at 91 FR 54800. Each area sits on the high seas adjacent to but OUTSIDE US customs waters and runs out to 24 nautical miles from the baseline — it covers water further offshore, not more land, and does not change what agents may do at an inland checkpoint, on a bus, or at a home. Inside a CEA, customs officers may board any vessel, examine the vessel and any merchandise or person on board, bring them into port, and pursue, seize or arrest, and may enforce 18 U.S.C. 2237 against a master who fails to heave to or obstructs a boarding. The four areas cover the South Florida coast including the Florida Keys, the Texas Gulf Coast from the Sabine River to the Mexican maritime boundary, the California coast from Ano Nuevo Lighthouse south to the Mexican maritime boundary including eight offshore islands, and the waters encircling Puerto Rico including Mona, Desecheo, Vieques and Culebra. CBP wrote the areas to operate independently, so enjoining one leaves the others in force.
August 24, 2026
Correction: community health center pages no longer claim patient information is never shared with immigration authorities
All 52 state community-health-center (FQHC) pages carried the blanket reassurance that patient information is not shared with immigration authorities. That is an overclaim after the 2025 HHS/CMS–ICE Medicaid data-sharing agreement, which a federal court only partially blocked on December 29, 2025. The pages now explain the HIPAA protection, the Medicaid-enrollment caveat, and that sliding-fee payment creates no Medicaid record.
August 21, 2026
H.R.1 fees appeal: emergency stay motion withdrawn — First Circuit sets merits briefing, opening brief due September 30, 2026
In the H.R.1 immigration-fees appeal (Venezuelan Ass'n of Mass. v. USCIS, 1st Cir. No. 26-1893), the plaintiffs withdrew their renewed emergency stay motion on August 20, 2026, and on August 21 the court granted the withdrawal and set a merits briefing schedule with the appellants' opening brief due September 30, 2026. No emergency ruling will issue, so the one-year cap on TPS-based work permits keeps operating while the appeal is briefed.
August 20, 2026
Treasury/IRS propose restricting the refunded portion of the CTC, EITC, AOTC, and adoption credit to citizens and PRWORA qualified aliens
Proposed regulations published Aug. 20, 2026 (REG-119882-25, 91 FR 53812) would treat the refunded portion of the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, American Opportunity Credit, and adoption credit as a federal public benefit under PRWORA. Only U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, and PRWORA qualified aliens (lawful permanent residents, asylees, refugees, and certain other groups) could receive the refunded portion; on a joint return one qualifying spouse suffices, and the non-refundable portion that offsets tax owed is unaffected. This is a proposal, not current law — it would apply to tax years ending on or after the date final regulations publish. Comments were accepted through Oct. 5, 2026.
August 20, 2026
IRS launches a digitally authenticated Tax Compliance Report in Individual Online Account
On Aug. 20, 2026 the IRS announced a downloadable Tax Compliance Report (IR-2026-97), available through IRS Individual Online Account, for use when applying for a job, a loan, a government benefit, or another service that requires tax-compliance information. Each report carries an IRS-issued digital certificate so receiving organizations can verify its authenticity. It complements, not replaces, the five transcript types.
August 18, 2026
USCIS publishes the public-charge framework that replaces the 2022 rule on September 18
On Aug. 18, 2026 USCIS published Policy Manual guidance, effective Sept. 18, 2026, that supersedes the 1999 Interim Field Guidance and governs public-charge determinations for I-485s filed on or after that date. Officers weigh five statutory factors case-by-case. Means-tested benefits received before Sept. 18, 2026 are considered only if they were cash assistance or long-term institutionalization (the 2022-rule limits); benefits the applicant receives on or after that date can all be considered — USCIS names cash assistance, housing assistance, food stamps, and college financial aid. Public-charge bonds (Form I-945) return, by USCIS invitation in a Notice of Intent to Deny only.
August 18, 2026
Ethiopia TPS terminated — the last court stay is lifted
On Aug. 18, 2026 Judge Brian E. Murphy of the District of Massachusetts lifted the administrative stay in African Communities Together v. Noem (No. 1:26-cv-10278, ECF 103), dismissing Counts I-IV and VI-VIII, denying dismissal of Count V, denying the postponement motion as moot, and ordering a joint discovery and briefing schedule by Aug. 25, 2026. USCIS archived the Ethiopia TPS page the same day and E-Verify guidance issued Aug. 18 (superseding Aug. 6) states the designation is terminated, effective Aug. 18, 2026 — A12/C19 EADs are no longer valid and employers must reverify. Ethiopia's promised Form I-9 date was Aug. 19, so it was cut one day short. No TPS designation is court-stayed any more.
August 17, 2026
Overtime corrected for daily-overtime states: California, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado
Our state wage pages stated overtime as the federal 1.5x-over-40h/week rule everywhere. Four states guarantee more: California (1.5x after 8h/day or 40h/week; 2x after 12h/day — Labor Code §510), Alaska (1.5x after 8h/day or 40h/week — Alaska Stat. §23.10.060), Nevada (1.5x after 8h in a 24-hour period for workers earning under 1.5x the state minimum wage — NRS 608.018), and Colorado (1.5x after 40h/week, 12h/workday, or 12 consecutive hours — COMPS Order Rule 4.1.1). Those four pages now state the state rule.
August 16, 2026
El Salvador TPS: pending EAD renewals extended by USCIS notice to Sept. 9, 2026
USCIS's El Salvador TPS page confirms that beneficiaries whose A12/C19 EAD renewal is still pending receive a notice (mail + myUSCIS) extending the expired card to September 9, 2026; qualifying card front dates go back to March 9, 2018. Nothing is announced beyond Sept. 9, 2026. Our El Salvador TPS pages now carry the mechanism EN+ES.
August 14, 2026
New I-539 and I-765 form editions Sept. 15 -- older editions rejected, no grace period
USCIS announced that revised 09/15/26 editions of Form I-539 (extend/change status) and Form I-765 (work permit) publish September 15, 2026, aligned with the fixed-period-of-admission rule. No grace period: older editions postmarked or submitted on or after September 15 are rejected; the new editions are accepted only on or after that date.
August 14, 2026
Appeals court lets USCIS resume re-review of approved cases (39-country litigation)
On August 14, 2026 the First Circuit partially stayed the Rhode Island ruling in Dorcas International v. USCIS: while the appeal proceeds, USCIS may resume re-reviewing already-approved benefit requests of people from the designated countries who entered the U.S. on or after January 20, 2021. The asylum and benefits holds remain vacated.
August 14, 2026
Somalia TPS terminated effective Aug. 14, 2026 — court lifts the stay and E-Verify says A12/C19 EADs are no longer valid
On the day Somalia's Aug. 14 Form I-9 date came due, the District of Massachusetts granted the government's motion and lifted the administrative stay in African Communities Together v. Noem (No. 26-cv-11201); the plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal the same day. E-Verify guidance issued Aug. 14, 2026 (superseding Aug. 12) states the Somalia designation is terminated, effective Aug. 14, 2026: Form I-766 EADs with category A12 or C19 are no longer valid and employers must reverify. Ethiopia's stay survived a same-day motion to lift (No. 26-cv-10278) and it is now the only designation still court-stayed, with a Form I-9 date of Aug. 19, 2026. The USCIS Somalia page had not yet been archived as of Aug. 15, 2026.
August 13, 2026
BIA: leaving on advance parole is now a "departure" — Matter of Arrabally overruled
In Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026, decided Aug. 13), the Board of Immigration Appeals overruled Matter of Arrabally and Yerrabelly (2012) and held that a departure under a grant of advance parole is a "departure" under INA §212(a)(9)(B)(i)(II). Advance-parole travel is no longer a safe harbor from the unlawful-presence bars, and the Board applied the rule to a trip already taken. Our I-131 and DACA travel pages now carry the new rule.
August 12, 2026
E-Verify moves the TPS Somalia Form I-9 date again: Aug. 12 to Aug. 14, 2026
On the day Somalia's Aug. 12 Form I-9 date came due, E-Verify posted superseding Somalia guidance replacing the Aug. 10 release. The EADs remain extended per court order under African Communities Together v. Noem (No. 26-cv-11201, D. Mass.), and employers now enter Aug. 14, 2026 on Form I-9 and in E-Verify. This is the second consecutive two-day step, and the third release in a row posted on the very day the prior date came due. Somalia remains the earlier of the two designations still court-stayed, ahead of Ethiopia (Aug. 19, 2026). The USCIS Somalia TPS page is still live, not archived (checked Aug. 14, 2026).
August 11, 2026
DOJ has filed 123 civil denaturalization complaints since Jan. 20, 2025 — a record — USCIS announces 25 more
USCIS announced that the Justice Department filed denaturalization actions against 25 individuals since July 2026 — described as the largest denaturalization effort yet — and that 123 civil denaturalization complaints have been filed since Jan. 20, 2025, the most in recorded history. In June 2026 news outlets had reported a DOJ goal of at least 250 cases by the end of fiscal year 2026. These are individual civil suits under 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a); each is decided on its own record. Denaturalization does not affect people who are U.S. citizens by birth.
August 11, 2026
New executive order on citizenship documents — birthright citizenship itself is unchanged
Executive Order 14418, signed August 6 and published August 11, 2026 (91 FR 51991), does not reopen Trump v. Barbara: a child born in the United States to undocumented parents is still a U.S. citizen at birth. The order directs federal agencies not to issue — or accept state and local documents recognizing — U.S. citizenship for a person when neither parent is a U.S. citizen and one of four categories applies: a parent is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization member or Specially Designated Global Terrorist; a parent is a foreign government employee (defined to include embassy or consulate employees who are nationals of that country); the parents engaged in a commercial transaction for birth tourism or U.S. surrogacy, or committed citizenship fraud; or the birth occurred in a U.S. territory where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute. The foreign-government-employee category is broader than the long-standing accredited-diplomat exception. Agencies must publish implementation guidance within 30 days, i.e. by September 5, 2026.
August 11, 2026
USCIS gains authority to require e-filing — new Form I-936 waiver ($25); nothing is mandated yet
An interim final rule effective on publication (91 FR 51924, Aug. 11, 2026) lets USCIS mandate electronic filing of a benefit request that has been available for e-filing at least 180 days (8 CFR 103.2(a)(1)(ii)), after publishing notice on uscis.gov with at least 60 days of advance notice. It mandates nothing on its own: DHS states the rule will have no practical effect until Form I-936 is approved by OMB and USCIS issues such a notice. New Form I-936, Request for Waiver of E-Filing Requirement, is filed before a paper filing and costs $25 (8 CFR 106.2(a)(64)), with a fee waiver available on Form I-912 (8 CFR 106.3). The standard is undue hardship at USCIS's discretion, weighing geographic location, socioeconomic conditions and the availability of public technology resources; DHS says lacking home internet is not by itself enough — the requestor must explain why libraries, community centers, friends or family are not an option. Comments close Oct. 13, 2026 (DHS Docket USCIS-2026-0232, RIN 1615-AD19).
August 10, 2026
Court declines to pause the TPS work-permit one-year cap during the H.R.1 fees appeal
On August 10, 2026 Judge Gorton denied the plaintiffs' emergency motion to stay the TPS work-authorization terminations pending appeal in Venezuelan Ass'n of Mass. v. USCIS, so the one-year cap on TPS-based EADs keeps operating. The plaintiffs' emergency stay motion at the First Circuit (No. 26-1893) was fully briefed August 14 and awaits a ruling.
August 10, 2026
E-Verify moves the TPS Somalia Form I-9 date again: Aug. 10 to Aug. 12, 2026
On the day Somalia's Aug. 10 Form I-9 date came due, E-Verify posted superseding Somalia guidance replacing the Aug. 5 release. The EADs remain extended per court order under African Communities Together v. Noem (No. 26-cv-11201, D. Mass.), and employers now enter Aug. 12, 2026 on Form I-9 and in E-Verify. The two-day step makes Somalia the earlier of the two designations still court-stayed, ahead of Ethiopia (Aug. 19, 2026). The USCIS Somalia TPS page is still live, not archived (checked Aug. 11, 2026). The release title is not the signal: Burma’s Aug. 7 termination was also posted as “Update on Termination” — only the text distinguishes an extension from a cut.
August 7, 2026
Burma (Myanmar) and South Sudan TPS terminated, effective Aug. 7, 2026 — A12/C19 work permits no longer valid
On Aug. 7, 2026 USCIS archived the Burma (Myanmar) and South Sudan TPS country pages, and E-Verify guidance issued the same day states both designations are terminated, effective Aug. 7, 2026 (Burma: 90 FR 53378; South Sudan: 90 FR 50484). Form I-766 EADs with category A12 or C19 issued under them are no longer valid, and employers must reverify those employees. South Sudan was terminated three days before the Aug. 10 Form I-9 date its Aug. 6 guidance had promised. Two designations remain court-stayed with EADs extended per court order: Somalia (I-9 date Aug. 10, 2026) and Ethiopia (Aug. 19, 2026).
August 6, 2026
The alien registration rule is now final and the appeal is over — DHS issued a final rule effective June 29, 2026 and the D.C. Circuit dismissed the challenge on August 6, 2026
Two changes closed out the Form G-325R registration fight. On June 29, 2026 DHS published the final rule “Alien Registration Form and Evidence of Registration” (91 FR 39248, RIN 1615-AC96), effective the same day. It adopts the March 2025 interim final rule as final and, in DHS's words, adopts the amendments to 8 CFR 264.1(a) and (b) “without change” — Form G-325R remains the general registration form and the USCIS Proof of Alien G-325R Registration remains the evidence of registration. The changes it does make are administrative: it updates which documents count as registration or as proof of registration (adding Forms I-94A/I-94W, DSP-150 in place of the old Canadian and Mexican border crossing cards, I-860, I-871, and NEXUS/SENTRI/FAST/Global Entry documents; dropping obsolete Forms I-67, I-691 and I-700), restructures the fingerprinting waivers in 8 CFR 264.1(e) — edits DHS calls “non-substantive and clarifying” — and makes technical corrections to 8 CFR 264.1(g), 264.5(h) and 264.6. DHS decided not to impose a biometric services fee “at this time,” while saying it may impose an application or biometric services fee in the future. Then, on August 6, 2026, the D.C. Circuit (Judges Millett, Katsas and Childs) discharged its July 27 order to show cause — which had asked why the consolidated appeals (Nos. 25-5152, 25-5233, 25-5247) should not be dismissed as moot in light of the new final rule — and ordered the clerk to note that the case is dismissed, stating that no mandate will issue. The court did not rule on whether the registration rule is lawful. The duty to register, the duty of registered noncitizens 18 and over to carry proof, and the criminal penalties for willful noncompliance are statutory (INA sections 262, 264(e) and 266) and did not change. The district court case (D.D.C. 1:25-cv-00943) remains stayed. DHS separately asked for comments on possible future changes to the registration regulations; that comment period closed August 28, 2026.
August 6, 2026
E-Verify moves two more TPS Form I-9 dates: Ethiopia to Aug. 19, South Sudan to Aug. 10, 2026
E-Verify posted superseding guidance for Ethiopia and South Sudan on Aug. 6, 2026 — the day their shared Form I-9 date came due — each replacing a July 30, 2026 release. Employment Authorization Documents under both designations remain extended per court order — African Communities Together v. Noem (Ethiopia: No. 26-cv-10278-BEM; South Sudan: No. 25-cv-13939-PBS, both D. Mass.) — and the guidance still describes the extension as limited relief until the lower courts align with Mullin v. Doe. South Sudan's Section 2 date moves from Aug. 6 to Aug. 10, 2026, the same day as Somalia; Ethiopia's moves from Aug. 6 to Aug. 19, 2026, a 13-day step that makes it the furthest out of the four court-stayed designations. Section 1 still reads 'as per court order'. Neither USCIS country page has been moved to the archive, the step that put the Haiti, Syria and Yemen terminations into force on July 27, 2026.
August 5, 2026
Court splits the H.R.1 ruling: asylum-fee rejection and removal stay blocked; the TPS work-permit cap stands
On Aug. 5, 2026, the federal court in Venezuelan Ass’n of Mass. v. USCIS (No. 26-cv-13038, D. Mass.) replaced its July 21 administrative stay with a longer-term ruling. Stayed nationwide while the case proceeds: the rule provisions letting USCIS reject a pending Form I-589 or initiate removal solely for non-payment of the Annual Asylum Fee. Denied: the challenge to H.R.1’s one-year cap on TPS-based work permits — previously-extended TPS EADs no longer keep their prior expiration dates. The fee itself remains payable, and published summaries of the order do not list work-authorization termination among the stayed provisions — verify current USCIS guidance on that point. The plaintiffs appealed to the First Circuit on Aug. 6, 2026.
August 5, 2026
E-Verify moves the TPS Somalia Form I-9 date again: Aug. 5 to Aug. 10, 2026
E-Verify posted superseding Somalia guidance on Aug. 5, 2026, replacing its Aug. 3, 2026 release. Employment Authorization Documents issued under the Somalia designation remain extended per court order -- African Communities Together v. Noem, No. 26-cv-11201 (D. Mass.) -- and the guidance still describes the extension as limited relief until the lower courts align with Mullin v. Doe. The Form I-9 Section 2 date employers enter moves from Aug. 5, 2026 to Aug. 10, 2026; Section 1 still reads 'as per court order'. The five-day step makes Somalia the last of the four court-stayed designations to come due rather than the first -- Ethiopia and South Sudan (Aug. 6, 2026) and Burma (Aug. 7, 2026) now fall before it. The USCIS Somalia country page remains live; it has not been moved to the archive, the step that put the Haiti, Syria and Yemen terminations into force on July 27, 2026.
August 5, 2026
USCIS restores full discretion to deny without first sending an RFE or NOID
USCIS Policy Alert PA-2026-05, issued Aug. 5, 2026 and effective immediately, updates Policy Manual Volume 1 so officers have full discretion to deny a benefit request without first issuing a Request for Evidence or a Notice of Intent to Deny when the initial evidence required by the form instructions is missing, or when the record does not establish eligibility. It applies to requests pending or filed on or after Aug. 5, 2026. The previous policy instructed officers to send an RFE or NOID first. The alert also drops the standard 12-week RFE response period: 8 CFR 103.2(b)(8)(iv) sets 12 weeks as the maximum, not the norm, and officers may now give less, so an RFE deadline can be considerably shorter than the 60-87 days previously typical. A NOID response stays capped at 30 days, mailed notices still add 3 days under 8 CFR 103.8(b), extra time cannot be granted, and the additional 14 days USCIS used to give for notices mailed outside the United States has been eliminated. Refugee and asylum applications are governed by separate regulations and are not covered.
August 3, 2026
Refugee-suspension case (Pacito v. Trump): trial schedule reset, no trial date set
On August 3, 2026 the Western District of Washington granted the parties' stipulated motion to amend the case schedule. The bench trial, previously set for November 9, 2026, now begins 306 days after the later of the court's ruling on the government's protective-order motion or the government's answer to the amended complaint. The government's motion to dismiss is pending, so no trial date is set.
August 3, 2026
E-Verify moves the TPS Form I-9 dates again: Somalia to Aug. 5, Burma to Aug. 7, 2026
E-Verify posted superseding guidance for Burma (replacing its July 27, 2026 release) and Somalia (replacing July 29, 2026) on the same day. Employment Authorization Documents issued under both designations remain extended per court order -- Aung Doe v. Noem, No. 25-cv-15483 (N.D. Ill.) for Burma and African Communities Together v. Noem, No. 26-cv-11201 (D. Mass.) for Somalia -- and both guidance releases still describe the extension as limited relief until the lower courts align with Mullin v. Doe. The Form I-9 Section 2 date employers enter moves from Aug. 3, 2026 to Aug. 5, 2026 for Somalia and to Aug. 7, 2026 for Burma; Section 1 still reads 'as per court order'. With Ethiopia and South Sudan at Aug. 6, 2026, each of the four court-stayed designations now carries a different date. Both USCIS country pages remain live -- neither has been moved to the archive, the step that put the Haiti, Syria and Yemen terminations into force on July 27, 2026.
August 3, 2026
DOL publishes updated H-2A Adverse Effect Wage Rates -- effective Aug. 3, 2026 (Aug. 17 for Kansas v. DOL entities)
The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration published updated Adverse Effect Wage Rates for H-2A agricultural workers under the OEWS-based methodology of the October 2025 interim final rule (FR Doc. 2026-15673). The updated rates are effective August 3, 2026, except for entities and states subject to the court order in Kansas et al. v. U.S. Department of Labor, 749 F. Supp. 3d 1363 (S.D. Ga. 2024), where they take effect August 17, 2026. When an AEWR update takes effect during a work contract, the employer must pay at least the updated rate from its effective date if it is higher than the applicable required wage.
July 30, 2026
Ethiopia and South Sudan TPS work-permit dates move to Aug. 6: E-Verify supersedes the July 17 guidance
On July 30, 2026 E-Verify posted superseding TPS guidance for Ethiopia and South Sudan, whose terminations remain stayed by the District of Massachusetts (African Communities Together v. Noem — Ethiopia No. 26-cv-10278, South Sudan No. 25-cv-13939). EADs issued under both designations remain extended per court order, and the Form I-9 / E-Verify expiration date employers enter moves from July 30 to Aug. 6, 2026. The guidance covers Ethiopia EADs with original expiration dates of June 12, 2024 and December 12, 2025, and South Sudan EADs with original expiration dates of November 3, 2023, May 3, 2025 and November 3, 2025, and describes each extension as limited relief until the lower courts align with Mullin v. Doe. All four court-stayed designations now carry an Aug. 3, 2026 (Burma, Somalia) or Aug. 6, 2026 (Ethiopia, South Sudan) date.
July 29, 2026
E-Verify supersedes TPS guidance for four countries the same day: Somalia's Form I-9 date moves to Aug. 3, and Haiti, Syria and Yemen EADs are declared no longer valid
On July 29, 2026 E-Verify posted superseding TPS guidance for four countries on the same day. For Somalia — whose termination remains stayed by the District of Massachusetts (African Communities Together v. Noem, No. 26-cv-11201) — the guidance supersedes the July 24 release and moves the Form I-9 / E-Verify expiration date from July 29 to Aug. 3, 2026, matching Burma; it describes the extension as limited relief until the lower courts align with Mullin v. Doe, and covers EADs with original expiration dates of March 17, 2023, September 17, 2024 and March 17, 2026. For Haiti, Syria and Yemen — archived by USCIS on July 27 — the guidance states that Form I-766 EADs with category A12 or C19 issued under those designations are no longer valid, and that employers must reverify those employees and cannot continue employing anyone who does not provide proof of current employment authorization. Yemen's guidance now gives the same July 20, 2026 effective date as the archived USCIS page, resolving the conflict with its July 17 guidance (July 24) that we had been citing both ways. No Federal Register notice accompanied any of the four.
July 27, 2026
Plaintiffs ask the full D.C. Circuit to rehear the nationwide expedited-removal ruling — en banc petition filed, still pending
Our case page said an en banc or Supreme Court petition was "possible but not confirmed filed." It has been filed. On July 27, 2026 Make the Road New York petitioned the D.C. Circuit for rehearing en banc in Make the Road New York v. Mullin, No. 25-5320, asking the full court to rehear the June 23, 2026 panel decision that vacated the district court's block on the January 2025 nationwide expedited-removal expansion. The government filed its response on August 17, 2026. As of September 1, 2026 the D.C. Circuit had not ruled on the petition and had not issued its mandate. The expansion stays in effect while the petition is pending: on July 17, 2026 the court granted the government's motion to stay the district court's order pending appeal, and denied its request to issue the mandate early.
July 27, 2026
TPS terminated for Haiti, Syria and Yemen — USCIS archived all three country pages
On July 27, 2026 USCIS moved the Haiti, Syria and Yemen TPS country pages into its archive. The archived pages state each designation is terminated — Haiti and Syria effective July 27, 2026 (90 FR 54733; 90 FR 45398), Yemen effective July 20, 2026 (91 FR 10402) — and the court-order EAD extension language that had protected work permits is gone. Roughly 334,595 Haitian and Syrian TPS holders are affected. As of that date their last E-Verify guidance had not been superseded (July 24, 2026 for Haiti and Syria, setting a July 27 Form I-9 date; July 17 for Yemen, setting July 24 — USCIS and E-Verify gave different Yemen dates, so we cited both). E-Verify posted superseding guidance for all three on July 29, 2026. Four designations remain court-stayed with EADs extended per court order: Burma, whose July 27, 2026 E-Verify guidance moved the Form I-9 date to Aug. 3, 2026; Somalia (July 29); and Ethiopia and South Sudan (July 30). No new Federal Register notice was issued — this implements the existing termination notices after Mullin v. Doe (June 25, 2026).
July 27, 2026
Correction: 41 states including DC have adopted Medicaid expansion — Puerto Rico cannot adopt it
Our Medicaid pages previously said "41 states + DC + Puerto Rico have adopted ACA Medicaid expansion." That double-counted DC (KFF's 41 already includes it) and wrongly listed Puerto Rico, which as a territory runs a separate capped Medicaid program outside the expansion framework and cannot adopt the expansion. Corrected against KFF tracking on July 27, 2026: 41 states including DC have adopted; 10 states have not. The Puerto Rico page now explains the territory's separate program.
July 27, 2026
USCIS can now refer affirmative asylum cases to immigration court without an interview
On July 27, 2026, DHS filed an interim final rule (Federal Register doc. 2026-15190, effective on publication, scheduled July 28) allowing a USCIS asylum officer to refer an affirmative asylum application to an immigration judge without conducting an interview, based on a review of the record, where the officer concludes the applicant is barred from applying, barred from a grant, does not merit a favorable exercise of discretion, or is not eligible on the merits. An interview still precedes any USCIS grant or denial. Referral letters no longer need to include a credibility assessment. Public comments are open for 60 days after publication (Docket USCIS-2026-0199).
July 24, 2026
Education Department drops disparate-impact rules from its Title VI regulations
A final rule effective July 24, 2026 (91 FR 46733) removes disparate-impact liability from the Education Department's Title VI regulations. The rule does not mention English learners or language access. A school system's duty to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers comes from the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, 20 U.S.C. 1703(f), a statute the rule does not change.
July 24, 2026
Illinois in-state tuition for undocumented students struck down — no appeal; aid blocked too
On July 24, 2026 a federal court (S.D. Ill., USA v. Illinois, 3:25-cv-01691) ruled the Illinois laws granting in-state tuition to students not lawfully present unconstitutional and also blocked RISE Act state financial aid (including MAP grants) and the Illinois DREAM Fund. The court delayed its order 14 days; the state did not appeal, so nonresident rates apply from August 2026. Illinois becomes the sixth jurisdiction to lose access since June 2025 and the fifth by court order. Separately, DOJ has now sued 17 states over tuition-equity laws, adding New York, Connecticut, and Vermont on Aug. 10, 2026.
July 24, 2026
TPS work-permit I-9 dates move again: Haiti and Syria to July 27, Somalia to July 29
On July 24, 2026, USCIS/E-Verify posted superseding guidance for three of the seven court-stayed TPS countries: employers now enter July 27, 2026 on Form I-9/E-Verify for Haiti (replacing the July 10 guidance) and Syria (replacing July 17), and July 29, 2026 for Somalia (replacing July 17). EADs remain extended per court order. Burma (July 27), Ethiopia and South Sudan (July 30) and Yemen (July 24) keep their July 17 guidance dates. These extensions are 'limited relief' until the lower courts align with the June 25 Supreme Court ruling — check your country's USCIS page daily.
July 23, 2026
Court pauses asylum-fee enforcement — but the fee itself still has to be paid
On July 21, 2026, a federal court in Massachusetts (Venez. Ass'n of Mass. v. USCIS, 26-cv-13038, D. Mass.) administratively stayed four applications of H.R.1: rejecting a Form I-589 for non-payment of the Annual Asylum Fee, terminating work authorization for non-payment, starting removal solely for non-payment, and applying H.R.1 to previously-extended TPS-based EAD expiration dates. Fee collection continues — anyone USCIS sent a notice must still pay it — and all other H.R.1 fees and requirements remain in effect. A hearing is set for July 30, 2026.
July 22, 2026
DC and Oregon raised their minimum wage on July 1 — our pages were still showing the old rates
The District of Columbia's minimum wage rose from $17.95 to $18.40 and Oregon's standard rate from $15.05 to $15.55 (Portland metro $16.30 to $16.80; non-urban $14.05 to $14.55), both effective July 1, 2026. We corrected both state pages in English and Spanish. Note that the Department of Labor's consolidated table lists a single rate per state and for Oregon that rate is the Portland metro figure, not the statewide standard — the rate that applies to you is the one for the place you actually work.
July 21, 2026
ICE detention is up 9.0% since April — and all of the growth is interior arrests
ICE released a new Detention Management snapshot on July 20, 2026 (data as of July 11). It counts 65,765 people in detention, up 5,454 (9.0%) from the 60,311 held on April 4. The entire net increase is interior enforcement: ICE-arrested detainees rose by 6,803 while CBP-arrested detainees fell by 1,349, moving the ICE share from 85.3% to 88.5%. The share with no criminal conviction barely moved, 70.8% to 70.6% (46,436 people). ICE publishes only the current snapshot and overwrites the file every ~2 weeks, so we now bank each release and publish the change between them.
July 21, 2026
USCIS restores the 30-day deadline to decide asylum-based work permits — and ties them to the Annual Asylum Fee
A correcting amendment published July 21, 2026 (91 FR 45637) puts back the 30-day timeframe for USCIS to grant or deny an initial (c)(8) work-permit application, which the April 29, 2026 H.R.1 fee rule had inadvertently deleted from 8 CFR 208.7(a)(1). It is applicable as of May 29, 2026, so DHS's position is that no gap took effect. No EAD may still be issued before day 180 after the asylum application was filed. The correction also adds 'rejected' to the rule, so a (c)(8) work permit is rejected or denied when the asylum application is rejected — the route by which not paying the Annual Asylum Fee, which causes the Form I-589 to be rejected, also costs the applicant the work permit.
July 20, 2026
The challenge to Tennessee's HB 1704 is alive again — plaintiffs filed a new case, Lucy v. Skrmetti, No. 3:26-cv-00998
Our case page said the plaintiffs "may refile or appeal" after the June 26, 2026 dismissal for lack of standing. They refiled. A new class-action complaint challenging Section 1 of H.B. 1704 was filed July 17, 2026 in the Middle District of Tennessee and docketed as Lucy v. Skrmetti, No. 3:26-cv-00998; no notice of appeal appears on the first case's docket. On July 20, 2026 Judge Eli Richardson denied the plaintiffs' motions to set aside the judgment and for reconsideration in the closed first case as moot, “in light of Plaintiffs filing a new action challenging Section 1 of H.B. 1704”. The plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction and class certification on July 20, 2026; as of September 1, 2026 the court had not ruled on either, so Section 1 — a Class A misdemeanor for intentionally remaining in Tennessee more than 90 days after a final removal order under the 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a) grounds — stays enforceable in the meantime.
July 20, 2026
Delaware enacts the country's highest statewide free-hospital-care threshold: free care at or below 300% FPL (SS 1 for SB 13, signed July 20, 2026)
Governor Meyer signed Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill 13 on July 20, 2026, setting statewide minimum hospital financial assistance: full financial assistance for Delaware residents at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, a 75% discount above 300% through 350%, a 50% discount above 350% through 400%, and a medical-hardship policy giving at least a 50% discount with an income ceiling of at least 500% FPL. It is NOT yet in effect: the minimum financial-assistance standards under 16 Del. C. 9962(a) and (b) take effect January 1, 2027, and the remaining provisions take effect on the earlier of a Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board notice in the Register of Regulations that final implementing regulations have been adopted, or July 1, 2027. Until then Delaware's existing charity-care rule (16 Del. C. 9311, Certificate of Public Review, 350% FPL) still governs.
July 17, 2026
TPS work-permit I-9 dates move again — now July 24, 27, or 30, 2026 depending on country
On July 17, 2026, USCIS/E-Verify posted superseding guidance for Burma, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen: TPS EADs remain extended per court order, and the date employers enter on Form I-9/E-Verify moved from July 17, 2026 to July 24 (Somalia, Syria, Yemen), July 27 (Burma), or July 30 (Ethiopia, South Sudan). Haiti's guidance is unchanged — its I-9 date remains July 24, 2026. The extensions remain 'limited relief' until each lower court aligns with the June 25 Supreme Court ruling.
July 17, 2026
Final rule ends 'duration of status' for F-1, J-1, and I — effective September 15, 2026
DHS published the final rule (FR doc 2026-14439) replacing open-ended 'duration of status' admission with a fixed admission period for F, J, and I nonimmigrants — for F-1, up to 4 years or the program end date, whichever is shorter, with a 30-day grace period and an extension-of-stay application for more time. It takes effect September 15, 2026 (a major rule subject to congressional review — DHS will publish a notice if the date changes). Those already in the U.S. on D/S keep their status until their I-20/DS-2019 program end date or 4 years after the effective date, whichever comes first, and receive a dated I-94 if they travel and re-enter.
July 16, 2026
DHS finalizes rescission of the 2022 public-charge rule — effective September 18, 2026
DHS issued a final rule (FR doc 2026-14539, published in the Federal Register July 20, 2026 at 91 FR 45324) rescinding the 2022 public-charge regulation. Nothing changes before September 18, 2026: the rescission applies to admissions and to Form I-485 filings postmarked or submitted electronically on or after that date, and the rule states that benefits received before it will still be considered under the 2022 rule. From September 18, USCIS officers will assess all pertinent facts case-by-case, and a revised Form I-485 will be required — older editions filed on or after that date will not be accepted.
July 10, 2026
Correction: I-90 replacement processing time is 6.5 months, not 7
Our Form I-90 page carried a 7-month figure for the "Initial issuance or replacement" category, taken from a 2026-05-26 snapshot of the USCIS processing-times system. Re-verified live against egov.uscis.gov on 2026-07-10, USCIS now publishes 6.5 months for that category; the 10-year renewal figure is unchanged at 10.5 months. Both pages (EN + ES) and the underlying dataset were corrected, and the page now also explains the Case Inquiry Date, which governs when USCIS will actually accept a question about a pending case.
July 10, 2026
USCIS signature rule took effect July 10, 2026: invalid signature found after acceptance can mean denial with the fee kept
DHS interim final rule (Federal Register 2026-09289, amending 8 CFR 103.2(a)(7)) applies to benefit requests submitted on or after July 10, 2026. If USCIS accepts a filing and later finds an invalid signature, it may reject it (fee refunded, filing date lost) or deny it and keep the filing fee — with no opportunity to correct the signature. Valid means handwritten (signature, thumbprint, or X); scanned/faxed/photocopied wet-ink originals stay acceptable; myUSCIS e-filing uses its secure electronic signature.
July 10, 2026
TPS work-permit I-9 dates move — July 17, 2026 for six litigation countries, July 24, 2026 for Haiti
On July 10, 2026, USCIS/E-Verify issued superseding guidance for the seven TPS designations extended per court order (Burma, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen). EADs remain extended as 'limited relief,' but the date employers enter on Form I-9 Section 2 and in E-Verify moves from July 10, 2026 to July 17, 2026 — and to July 24, 2026 for Haiti.
July 3, 2026
TPS work permits for all 7 countries in litigation extended per court order — employers enter July 10, 2026 on Form I-9 (July 1 USCIS/E-Verify guidance)
On July 1, 2026, USCIS and E-Verify issued updated per-country guidance for Burma, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen: TPS EADs remain extended per court order — including Haiti (Miot v. Trump, D.D.C.) and Syria (Dahlia Doe v. Noem, S.D.N.Y.), whose permits had been set to lapse July 1 after the June 25 Supreme Court ruling (Mullin v. Doe). Employers enter 'as per court order' in I-9 Section 1 and July 10, 2026 in Section 2/E-Verify. The guidance calls this 'limited relief' until each lower court aligns with the ruling. This CORRECTS our July 1 snapshot, which said Haiti and Syria EADs expired that day.
July 2, 2026
Tennessee now requires citizenship or 'qualified alien' status for professional licenses (Public Chapter 955, in effect since May 7, 2026)
Public Chapter 955 (HB 1709, signed May 7, 2026) makes US citizenship or 'qualified alien' status (Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-58-102 — the 8 U.S.C. § 1641(b) categories plus lawful nonimmigrants under § 1621(a)) a condition of eligibility for professional and commercial licenses across dozens of Tennessee boards — health professions, educators, insurance, banking, trades, alcohol permits — for new applications AND renewals. It repealed the prior rule accepting any SAVE-verified federal work authorization, so an EAD by itself (for example, DACA-based) no longer establishes eligibility. Exceptions: physicians with a pending work-visa application; J-1/F-1 students for alcohol permits. The automatic-revocation provision scheduled for July 1, 2026 never took effect (its companion bill HB 1711/SB 2108 died in committee).
July 1, 2026
Correction: 104 driver's-license pages verified against federal sources — EDL eligibility, I-9 framing, fee figures
Three template claims on our 52-jurisdiction driver's-license pages failed primary-source verification and were corrected in English and Spanish: (1) Enhanced Driver's Licenses were described as available to green-card holders — DHS confirms EDLs prove U.S. citizenship and are for U.S. citizens only (issued by MI, MN, NY, VT, WA; valid at land/sea entry from Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean — not Bermuda); (2) the Form I-9 note was garbled — a state license is a List B identity document by itself, and a separate List C work-authorization document (such as an unrestricted Social Security card) is what must accompany it; (3) generic fee ranges like "$20-$80" were removed and every fee cell now links to that state's official fee page. The CDL Social Security-number requirement citation was corrected to 49 CFR 383.153(e)(1).
July 1, 2026
Correction: Illinois driver's-license page updated — the TVDL was eliminated July 1, 2024
Our Illinois driver's-license guide still described the Temporary Visitor Driver's License (TVDL) as the path for undocumented residents. Illinois eliminated the TVDL on July 1, 2024: undocumented and no-SSN residents now receive the standard Illinois license (marked Federal Limits Apply) — $30, with a passport or approved consular card, one year of Illinois residency, and proof of insurance; existing TVDL holders can switch for $5. The page and every site mention have been corrected against the Illinois Secretary of State.
July 1, 2026
Tennessee's state crime for remaining after a final removal order takes effect (HB 1704 / Public Chapter 771)
Section 1 of Tennessee's HB 1704 (Public Chapter 771) is in effect as of July 1, 2026: a Class A misdemeanor (up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and a $2,500 fine) for a noncitizen 18 or older who has an outstanding final removal order under the 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a) deportability grounds and intentionally remains in Tennessee more than 90 days after that order. The federal challenge (Lucy v. Skrmetti) was dismissed without prejudice on June 26, 2026, so no court order blocks the law; the plaintiffs may refile or appeal.
July 1, 2026
Maine hospitals must now give free care to patients at or below 200% FPL — 22 M.R.S. §1716-A takes effect
Maine's amended hospital charity-care law (P.L. 2025, ch. 488) is in effect as of July 1, 2026: hospitals must give free medically necessary care when family income is at or below 200% of the federal poverty level (up from 150% under the prior rule), offer payment plans capped at 4% of monthly income for patients up to 400% FPL, and provide written notice and appeal rights.
July 1, 2026
Indiana hospitals must now offer payment-assistance applications before sending bills to collections — HEA 1271 (P.L. 88-2026) takes effect
Indiana's HEA 1271, enacted as Public Law 88-2026, is in effect as of July 1, 2026: every hospital must notify patients about payment assistance and offer an application before referring any bill to collections. Nonprofit hospitals must keep charity-care criteria indexed to the federal poverty guidelines; each hospital sets its own thresholds.
July 1, 2026
Haiti and Syria TPS work permits expire — 334,595 lose work authorization after the June 25 Supreme Court ruling
June 30, 2026
Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship; Executive Order 14160 struck down (6–3)
June 26, 2026
Supreme Court clears the way to end TPS for Haiti and Syria; work permits expire July 1, 2026
June 26, 2026
USCIS publishes notice for clients of former immigration attorney Alexandra Lozano
Alexandra Lozano resigned from the Washington State Bar in lieu of discipline (May 26, 2026), closed her firm (June 10, 2026), and was suspended from practice before DHS, the immigration courts, and the BIA (June 18, 2026). USCIS lists steps for her clients: update your mailing address (special VAWA/T/U procedure if it applies), request your file through FOIA, and call 800-375-5283 if you do not know which office has your case.
June 25, 2026
Legal-aid groups sue USCIS over DACA renewal delays (East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. USCIS)
East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area (Justice Action Center as counsel) filed suit in the Northern District of California, No. 3:26-cv-06367, over severe DACA renewal delays that leave timely filers without work authorization. Active; no order has changed the renewal procedure. Our I-821D renewal pages carry the case and the day-150 filing guidance.
June 24, 2026
DACA renewal processing times have risen in 2026
USCIS data reported by CNN in May 2026 showed the median DACA (Form I-821D) renewal taking about 70 days from October 2025 through February 2026, up from roughly 15 days a year earlier, amid expanded background vetting introduced in April 2026 and higher filing volumes. There is no premium processing for I-821D — only a discretionary expedite request. Renewals continue nationwide and first-time applications remain frozen. The practical advice on our renewal guide is unchanged but more urgent: file at the front of the 120–150-day window.
June 23, 2026
Supreme Court narrows returning green-card holders' rights at the border (Blanche v. Lau, 6–3)
June 15, 2026
ICE detention facility directory verified against the official ICE list
Every facility page's street address was checked against the current official ICE detention-facility list (151 facilities). Two active facilities that were missing — Dakota County Sheriff Office in Dakota City, Nebraska and Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, Iowa — were added with verified address and phone, bringing coverage to all 151. The visitation-hours guidance was also corrected across the directory to send families to the facility and the official ICE page for current hours.
June 15, 2026
State demographic figures refreshed to the 2024 Census ACS 5-year estimates
Across every state guide, the foreign-born, total-population, and Hispanic/Latino figures were refreshed from the 2023 to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates (the latest available), pulled directly from the US Census Bureau API. Puerto Rico stays on the 2023 vintage because the 2024 release suppresses its foreign-born figure.
June 15, 2026
IRS Free File income limit for the 2026 filing season is $89,000
The IRS Free File guided-software income cap is $89,000 in adjusted gross income (up from $79,000) for the 2026 filing season. We updated the figure across every state's free-tax-help guide and the tax-software comparison; your ITIN is accepted, and the free return covers your federal taxes (some partners also include a free state return).
June 12, 2026
Correction: Mexico consulate directory — official county-level jurisdictions added; Anchorage page removed (closed since 2015)
We added Mexico's official consular jurisdictions (SRE master list cross-checked against each consulate's own circunscripción page) — 53 offices, county-by-county for split states. Three errors fixed in the process: our Anchorage page described a consulate that closed in November 2015 (Alaska belongs to Seattle); the New Brunswick consulate's address is 390 George Street, Suite 100 (not 100 Bayard Street); and the directory counted 55 offices when the network is 52 (51 consulates plus the embassy's consular section, including Oklahoma City and San Juan).
June 12, 2026
Correction: EOIR delisted 3 adjudication centers (74 locations); state court listings fixed
EOIR's hearing-access page now lists 74 court locations (the Falls Church, Richmond and Fort Worth adjudication centers were delisted). We also fixed state pages against the live list: Georgia was missing both Atlanta courts, Texas was missing El Paso SPC, Pennsylvania showed a nonexistent Pittsburgh court, and Alaska showed a nonexistent Anchorage court. Per EOIR's administrative control list, the Boise, Helena and Anchorage DHS offices are assigned to Portland, OR, and West Virginia to Philadelphia, PA.
June 12, 2026
Correction: EOIR court count and in-absentia fee updated on 104 court pages
Our immigration-court state pages said EOIR operates 71 courts with 700+ judges; EOIR's own hearing-access list covers 77 court locations, and the judge count was unsourced. The same pages garbled the H.R.1 in-absentia arrest fee: it is $5,130 after the 2026 inflation adjustment (originally $5,000), and proposed rule 2026-10082 (May 20, 2026) would raise it to $18,000 but is not in effect.
June 12, 2026
Correction: 7 immigration-court addresses fixed on our by-state pages
Seven court listings (LaSalle and Oakdale LA, Kansas City MO, Otero NM, Guaynabo PR, San Antonio TX, Los Angeles-West CA) showed EOIR headquarters' Falls Church, VA address as the court city. Each was re-verified against its justice.gov page and corrected, in both languages.
June 3, 2026
Federal court strikes down Nebraska in-state tuition for undocumented students
On June 3, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska struck down LB 239 (2006) as preempted by federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1623) and barred its enforcement, ending in-state tuition for undocumented students immediately; the same ruling revoked their Nebraska Opportunity Grant and ACE Scholarship eligibility. Nebraska joins Texas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma; 19 states plus DC still offer in-state access.
May 28, 2026
Lebanon TPS automatically extended through November 27, 2026
The TPS designation for Lebanon was automatically extended six months, from May 28 through November 27, 2026 (91 FR 32069).
May 18, 2026
Federal court largely halts ICE arrests at New York City immigration courts
In African Communities Together v. Lyons, a district court stay issued May 18, 2026 largely prohibits ICE civil enforcement in or near 26 Federal Plaza, 201 Varick St, and 290 Broadway — after the government admitted in March 2026 that its 2025 memo never authorized immigration-court arrests. Other cities are not covered by the stay.
April 6, 2026
Colombia changed passport fees at its US consulates
New fee schedule for Colombian passports issued at consulates in the United States took effect April 6, 2026 — ordinary booklet US$86, executive US$175, minors' processing differs.
March 30, 2026
US Embassy in Caracas formally reopened — visas still processed through Bogotá
After nearly seven years closed, the embassy resumed operations on March 30, 2026. The consular section is still being rebuilt: Venezuelan visa cases continue through the Venezuela Affairs Unit in Bogotá until limited interviews restart in Caracas.
March 25, 2026
Government admits its 2025 memo never authorized immigration-court arrests
In the New York courthouse-arrest litigation, DOJ conceded in March 2026 that the 2025 memorandum cited as authority for arresting people at immigration-court hearings does not and never has authorized those arrests — the admission that led to the May 18, 2026 stay.
March 1, 2026
Georgia raised its property-residence threshold to US$150,000
The republic of Georgia raised the minimum property value for its short-term residence permit from US$100,000 to US$150,000, effective March 1, 2026.
March 1, 2026
SBA closed its loan programs to every non-citizen owner - green-card holders included
SBA now requires a business to be owned 100% by U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals: 7(a) and 504 from March 1, 2026 (SOP 50 10 8) and microloans from April 1, 2026 (SOP 52 00 B). SBA's Ineligible Person list names undocumented owners but also lawful permanent residents, asylees, refugees, DACA recipients and visa holders. Free SCORE/SBDC/WBC counseling is unaffected, and SBA disaster loans still admit qualified aliens under SOP 50 30 9 - so an LPR is barred from a 7(a) loan yet still eligible for a disaster loan. GAO found on July 1, 2026 (B-338157) that SBA skipped Congressional Review Act submission, but the notices remain in effect.
February 19, 2026
Colombia's 2026 minimum wage raised visa income floors ~23%
Colombia's visa income requirements are pegged to the minimum wage (SMMLV), set at COP 1,750,905 for 2026 by transitional decree: the M pensioner visa floor is now ≈US$1,467/month and the rentista floor ≈US$4,889/month. The decree is under Consejo de Estado review and could move again.
February 10, 2026
Colombia reset its immigration fees — foreigner ID card now COP 294,000
Migración Colombia's annual fee resolution (Resolución 0599/2026) set the cédula de extranjería at COP 294,000 (≈US$82), effective February 10, 2026. These fees re-index every February.
January 26, 2026
Texas TDLR begins requiring proof of lawful presence for occupational licenses (agency rule effective May 1, 2026)
Effective Jan. 26, 2026, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation requires certain applicants for an initial license or a renewal to submit documentation establishing lawful presence in the United States, citing 8 U.S.C. § 1621; the agency's rule took effect May 1, 2026. Applications remain pending until the documentation is submitted. Texas has never enacted a § 1621(d) opt-out, so this enforces the existing federal default rather than changing the state's classification. State officials told the Texas Tribune (Mar. 24, 2026) that DACA recipients will not qualify.
January 21, 2026
B1/B2 visa bond of up to $15,000 for Cuban and Venezuelan nationals
Per US embassy guidance effective January 21, 2026, nationals of Cuba and Venezuela found otherwise eligible for a B1/B2 visitor visa may be required to post a bond of up to $15,000 before issuance, wherever they apply.
January 1, 2026
Ecuador's 2026 basic salary pushed retiree-visa income floor to $1,446/month
Ecuador's pensioner and rentista visa floors are 3× the unified basic salary (SBU). With SBU 2026 set at $482, the floor rose to $1,446/month plus $250 per dependent.
January 1, 2026
1% federal excise tax on cash-funded remittances takes effect
IRC §4475 (enacted in the 2025 budget law) imposes a 1% excise tax on remittance transfers funded with cash, money orders, or cashier's checks sent abroad on or after January 1, 2026. Transfers funded from a US bank account or a US-issued debit/credit card are exempt.
September 2025
Philippines restructured the SRRV retirement visa — age floor now 40, categories consolidated
The Philippine Retirement Authority abolished the SRRV Smile and Human Touch categories for new applicants and set the age floor at 40. Deposits now run $15,000-$50,000 depending on age and pension status.
August 25, 2025
DACA recipients excluded from ACA Marketplace coverage again (HHS final rule effective Aug 25, 2025)
HHS's Marketplace Integrity and Affordability final rule (90 FR, FR Doc. 2025-11606, published June 25, 2025) removed DACA recipients from the definition of "lawfully present" for Marketplace plans, premium tax credits and Basic Health Program coverage, reversing the May 2024 rule. Effective August 25, 2025. Our healthcare-by-status page had kept the 2024 wording; corrected September 2, 2026.
July 4, 2025
HR-1 immigration fees in force: TPS application $510, work permits no longer fee-waivable
The 2025 budget law (HR-1) raised the TPS application (Form I-821) to $510 and added non-waivable employment-authorization fees of $560 (initial) and $280 (renewal) that stack on top. These amounts adjust for inflation each January.
July 4, 2025
Child Tax Credit now requires the TAXPAYER to have an SSN (from 2025 returns)
The 2025 tax law (P.L. 119-21) raised the CTC to $2,200 per child and added a second SSN requirement: beginning with 2025 returns, the taxpayer claiming the credit must have an SSN (at least one spouse on a joint return). Two ITIN-only parents can no longer claim the CTC even for a US-citizen child — the $500 Credit for Other Dependents applies instead.
June 2025
Texas ended in-state tuition for undocumented students; Kentucky, Oklahoma and Nebraska followed
Federal litigation ended Texas's two-decade-old in-state tuition access for undocumented students in June 2025, with similar outcomes in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Nebraska during 2025-26. As of mid-2026, 19 states plus DC still offer access.
January 5, 2025
WEP repealed — foreign pensions no longer reduce US Social Security benefits
The Social Security Fairness Act repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). A pension from your home country no longer shrinks the US Social Security benefit you earned on your US work record.
How this connects to the rest of the site
The tracker complements the living-data pages that update automatically:
- US visa interview wait times — re-pulled from the State Department each new edition
- Border crossing wait times — CBP feed, daily
- Visa Bulletin movement tracker — monthly, with category-by-category movement
- TPS status by country — designation and litigation posture per country
- DACA litigation status — dated updates as rulings land
- USCIS processing times — 43 forms across all offices (dataset scraped October 3, 2026)
Last verified: 2026-09-24.
General procedural information for educational purposes. Not legal, tax, or immigration advice. Laws and fees change — verify with the issuing agency before taking action. For case-specific guidance, consult a licensed immigration attorney or other appropriate professional.
Data on this topic
Datasets we maintain and keep current, with official sources cited. Free to download and embed.
- Every TPS action since 1994: 292 Federal Register notices, 27 countries, 32 years
- What changed: Ethiopia TPS terminated Aug. 18 as the court lifts the last stay — 11 of 15 designations terminated; none remain court-stayed
- Every USCIS filing fee since 2004: 40 forms across six Federal Register rules
- Three green-card lines froze for nine straight bulletins, then moved by days — the 2026 Visa Bulletin movement data