Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

17. Department of Justice · Notable

Repromulgate every Trump-era immigration rule through rulemaking

Partially done

568 17. Department of Justice

“At a minimum, pursue through rulemaking—and in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security where appropriate—the promulgation of every rule related to immigration that was issued during the Trump Administration.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    DHS and the Justice Department finalized the civil-penalty rule of 2025-06-27. The final rule "addresses comments and finalizes the IFR with one change": ICE may accept a late appeal where documented mail delays were beyond the alien's control. It took effect on publication. The first-term penalty regime is now restored by final rule. It is still two rules of the many the Quote names, and no comprehensive repromulgation program has been published, so this stays `partial`.

  2. Partially done

    The December 2020 Security Bars and Processing rule, delayed repeatedly under the previous administration, was confirmed to take effect on December 31, 2025, with a partial withdrawal to reconcile it with intervening amendments. Two first-term rules restored; the Quote asks for every immigration rule issued during the Trump Administration, and no comprehensive repromulgation program or list has been published.

  3. Partially done

    Rulemaking is bringing first-term immigration rules back. The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security jointly issued an interim final rule restoring the civil monetary penalties for aliens who fail to depart voluntarily or willfully refuse to leave after a final removal order — the enforcement regime of the first Trump Administration, repromulgated in partnership with DHS as the Quote contemplates.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Every Justice Department rule and proposed rule in the window among the Federal Register documents we keep and search was listed and read by title; these two are the repromulgations. The rest of the department’s immigration rulemaking is new (temporary immigration judges, Board appellate procedure, EOIR fees) rather than restored.

Found 2026-10-14. The final civil-penalty rule (FR 2026-21024) completes the interim final rule this item’s first event rests on, and it gets an event of its own. It was first read from the summary in our stored copy only, and the page was not opened; the Evidence’s access date is the date that copy was fetched (2026-10-15 UTC). Resolved on review, below. The same day DHS published a proposal to remove USCIS’s deference to prior approvals (FR 2026-20941). It is recorded on #323, not here: as far as we then knew, the first administration rescinded that deference by a 2017 USCIS policy memorandum, not by a rule, so the proposal restores a first-term policy by rulemaking. Whether that counts toward this Quote (“every rule”) turned on confirming the 2017 memorandum (#323’s lead names it).

Reviewed 2026-10-14. We opened FR 2026-21024 through the Federal Register API: final rule, effective 2026-10-14 (the publication date). The deference proposal (FR 2026-20941) stays a note here, not an event. Its preamble confirms that the first administration rescinded deference by a policy memorandum (PM-602-0151, 2017-10-23), not by a rule, so there is no Trump-era rule for it to repromulgate. What it reverses is a Biden-era regulation, which is recorded on #323.

Action
reinstate
Object
Trump Administration immigration rules
ID
1573