DHS directs ICE to pursue immigration attorneys under asylum-fraud authority

On May 26, 2026, DHS General Counsel James Percival issued a memo instructing attorneys in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) to develop "anti-fraud policies" aimed at "robust enforcement" of 8 U.S.C. § 1324c, the civil document-fraud statute. The memo stated that any such effort "should include enforcement against immigration attorneys filing false asylum claims in immigration court." While the directive creates no new penalties, it signals that ICE lawyers will more aggressively deploy existing administrative enforcement tools — civil fines that reach up to $4,730 per document for a first offense and roughly $11,823 for subsequent offenses — not only against asylum applicants but against the attorneys who represent them.

The memo accused immigration lawyers of coaching clients to conceal facts or exaggerate persecution claims, and explicitly invoked President Trump's March 2026 directive instructing the Attorney General to seek sanctions against lawyers and firms that bring "frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious" litigation against the government. By tying document-fraud enforcement to representation adverse to the administration's immigration policy, the directive ties federal enforcement scrutiny to a disfavored category of lawyers. For attorneys, a fraud finding could be referred to disciplinary authorities and lead to suspension or expulsion from practice before the immigration courts.

Immigration lawyers and advocacy groups, including the American Immigration Lawyers Association, have warned that such measures are designed to deter legal challenges and chill asylum representation. Critics note that the document-fraud standard is broad enough that it could be difficult to distinguish genuinely fraudulent filings from merely weak claims, raising the prospect that the threat of enforcement suppresses zealous advocacy and narrows noncitizens' access to counsel. Whether concrete enforcement actions follow the directive remains to be seen.