Judge Orders DHS to Resume Fingerprinting Detained Immigrants With Pending Green Card and Visa Applications

A federal judge in Washington has suspended the December 2025 policy under which DHS stopped taking fingerprints and photos from detained immigrants with pending USCIS applications. The ruling does not decide anyone’s case, but it reopens a door that, for many detainees, had quietly closed.

A federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to go back to collecting biometrics from immigrants held in ICE detention who have applications pending with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In an Oct. 7 opinion in J.Z. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Judge Amir H. Ali of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stayed the policy, announced by USCIS on Dec. 5, 2025, that DHS “generally will not take biometrics of detained aliens,” finding it likely arbitrary and capricious. The people most directly affected are detainees seeking a green card through adjustment of status, T visas for trafficking survivors, U visas for crime victims, Special Immigrant Juvenile status, and derivative asylum for the spouse or child of an asylee. The government must tell the court how it is complying by Oct. 21.

The stakes are larger than a fingerprint appointment suggests. Under USCIS rules, an applicant who misses a biometrics appointment is generally treated as having abandoned the application, and the agency does not accept detention as a reason to reschedule. A detainee cannot drive to an Application Support Center. So once ICE stopped bringing detainees to appointments, and USCIS stopped sending staff to detention centers, many applications had no realistic way forward. Judge Ali described the policy as operating as “a de facto denial” of those applications.

How a routine screening step became a dead end

Biometrics are not a formality. USCIS uses fingerprints and photographs to confirm identity and run FBI and other background checks, and nearly every benefit that leads to permanent status requires them. The regulation at 8 C.F.R. 103.2(b)(13) says that if an applicant fails to appear for biometrics, the request is considered abandoned and denied unless USCIS has agreed to accommodate a change.

For years, DHS handled detained applicants through an internal arrangement that made ICE responsible for collecting their biometrics. According to the opinion, the December 2025 package did three things at once: it announced the new general rule against taking detainees’ biometrics, barred USCIS employees and contractors from traveling to detention facilities for that purpose, and rescinded the intradepartmental agreement that had assigned the job to ICE. The USCIS Policy Manual was revised to delete language saying ICE was responsible for background checks on detained applicants. The one exception the policy kept was for people in removal proceedings who have an application or petition pending before the immigration court rather than USCIS.

The only reason the agency gave in public was to “deter the filing of frivolous claims and provide operational consistency.” Six detained immigrants sued in April, represented by Democracy Forward, the National Immigration Project and the National Immigrant Justice Center. According to the court’s account and reporting by Newsweek, they include trafficking and domestic violence survivors, a young person seeking protection after childhood abuse, and a man applying for a green card through his marriage to a U.S. citizen. Two plaintiffs managed to give biometrics during the litigation and were released or granted status, and the court treated their claims as moot.

Where the government’s defense fell short

The government’s core argument was that the policy did not actually stop anyone from giving biometrics. Detainees could ask ICE to collect them, the government said, and some applicants could continue their cases after removal. It also argued that the policy merely clarified existing duties and was not a final agency action a court could review.

Judge Ali rejected each point on the record before him. He found that ICE’s collections after December had been ad hoc, with no stated criteria, and that some happened only after lawsuits or court orders. He found the policy had changed the status quo rather than restating it, pointing to the press release, the policy alert, the manual revision and the rescinded agreement. On the merits, he concluded the agency appeared never to have considered that the policy would block pending applications, and that the frivolous-claims rationale did not fit a rule that sweeps in valid claims alongside weak ones. When the judge asked at a hearing how the policy would serve its stated goals, a government lawyer answered, “I don’t have an answer to that right now.”

The suggestion that people could keep pursuing their cases from abroad did not hold up either. The court noted that some applications are deemed abandoned when the applicant leaves the country, and that a person removed from the United States can face bars on returning of 5, 10 or 20 years under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)(A).

The judge ruled only on the arbitrary-and-capricious claim. He did not decide whether the policy also violates the Immigration and Nationality Act, required notice-and-comment rulemaking, or denied due process. He also declined to issue a separate preliminary injunction, saying the stay was enough for now.

A nationwide pause, despite the Supreme Court’s limits on injunctions

The most consequential legal choice in the opinion may be its scope. The stay was issued under 5 U.S.C. 705, the provision of the Administrative Procedure Act that lets a court postpone an agency action while a case proceeds. Since the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA curtailed universal injunctions, the government has pressed courts to limit relief to the named plaintiffs. Judge Ali, relying on the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Center for Taxpayer Rights, held that “CASA does not control the scope of relief available under 5 U.S.C. § 705.” The result is that the policy, the alert, the manual changes and the rescission of ICE’s role are all on hold for everyone, not just the plaintiffs.

That reasoning tracks a split that has been building in the lower courts since CASA: an injunction orders the government to do or stop doing something for particular parties, while a stay or vacatur under the APA acts on the agency action itself. The Supreme Court left that question open in 2025. In our analysis, if the government appeals, the scope of a Section 705 stay is the issue most likely to draw attention, because it affects far more than this policy.

The opinion gives no count of how many detainees have pending USCIS applications or how many were denied for missed biometrics, and we could find no public figure for either. For scale, TRAC, the data research center at Syracuse University, reported that ICE was holding 65,765 people in detention as of July 11, 2026, the most recent date shown on its quick-facts page when checked on Oct. 9, and that 70.6 percent of them had no criminal conviction. How many of those people have a USCIS case waiting is not known.

What detainees, families and lawyers are asking

I’m in ICE detention with a pending I-485 or U visa petition. Will ICE take my fingerprints now?

It should, but the mechanics are not yet clear. The order restores the arrangement that existed before December 2025, under which DHS collected biometrics from detained applicants. How quickly ICE and USCIS restart that process, and in which facilities, will be clearer after the government files its compliance report on Oct. 21. Lawyers for detainees with pending cases can point ICE and USCIS to the stay order when requesting collection.

My application was already denied because I missed biometrics while detained. Is it reopened automatically?

No, not on the face of the ruling. The court stayed the policy going forward and did not order USCIS to revisit past denials. Anyone in that position should talk with a lawyer promptly about whether to file a motion to reopen or reconsider, or to refile, because filing deadlines can be short. Whether the stay strengthens those requests is a question the order does not answer.

Does this ruling get anyone released from detention or stop a deportation?

No. The order concerns only biometrics collection. It does not grant any visa or green card, release anyone from custody or halt removal. It does make it possible for USCIS to keep processing applications that the policy had effectively frozen, which matters because many of the plaintiffs, according to the court, could not be detained or deported if their applications were granted.

Who does the policy still cover if the stay is in place?

For now, no one. The stay is not limited to the plaintiffs, so the December 2025 policy cannot be applied to any detained applicant while it remains in effect. Detainees whose applications are before the immigration court, rather than USCIS, were already handled under a separate track and are not the focus of the case.

Can DHS appeal or simply reissue the policy?

Both are possible, and neither had been announced as of Oct. 9. The government can ask the D.C. Circuit to review the stay. Separately, because the court found the agency’s explanation inadequate rather than holding that DHS can never adopt such a rule, the agency could try to issue a new policy with a fuller record that addresses the problems the judge identified. Under long-standing APA case law, a new action with a new explanation is judged on its own reasoning. The plaintiffs’ other claims, including the argument that notice-and-comment rulemaking was required, remain pending and could limit that route.

The policy debate behind the ruling

The administration’s stated position is that the policy deters frivolous claims and brings operational consistency, and in court it argued that detainees could still ask ICE to collect their biometrics and that some could pursue their cases after removal. The plaintiffs’ lawyers, in a joint statement reported by Newsweek, called the policy an “impossible trap” that blocked protections Congress wrote for trafficking survivors, crime victims and abused children. The court did not decide which side has the better policy argument. It held that, whatever the goal, the agency had to explain how the rule served it and account for the applications it would shut down, and that on this record it had done neither.

The case fits a broader pattern in 2026 immigration litigation. Many of the administration’s changes have come through policy alerts, manual revisions and internal memos rather than formal rules, and a recurring question when courts review them under the APA is whether the agency explained its reasoning and considered the people it would affect. That standard does not prevent an agency from changing course. It does require the agency to show its work, and the government’s lawyer conceded in court that, on this policy, he could not.

Dates and decisions to watch

Oct. 21, 2026: DHS’s status report to the court describing how it is complying with the stay.
A possible appeal: any notice of appeal or request to the D.C. Circuit to pause the stay, which would likely put the Section 705 scope question in front of the appeals court.
USCIS guidance: any updated policy alert or Policy Manual change restoring the earlier language, or a new policy offering a different justification.
The remaining claims: the court has yet to rule on the statutory, notice-and-comment and due process claims.

Immigration Analytics will update this story as DHS’s compliance report and any appeal become available. This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The situation is changing quickly, so please consult an immigration attorney about your specific case.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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