The Reader made the editorial decision not to publish Mayra’s full name amid her pending immigration case.
Mayra set a large stack of papers on her kitchen table. She took a seat and shuffled through copies of legal records, letters from attorneys and interview schedules. The mother of four had saved hundreds of documents tied to her immigration case.
She pulled from the pile a “letter of intent” filed in 2023. It was written with the help of a local lawyer as part of multiple visa applications Mayra submitted over the past two years. She’s still waiting to hear the outcome of those applications.
“It’s all just waiting, it’s all waiting,” Mayra said tearfully as she watched her 2-year-old daughter play in the living room of her Omaha home. “It’s devastating because we just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Mayra is among tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants navigating increasingly complex policies. Legal avenues that once existed have closed as President Donald Trump and his administration drastically reshape immigration law.
The changes create a federally backed system of uncertainty.
Immigrants who have for years lived in the U.S. legally may suddenly find themselves stripped of their legal status. And as the waitlist for local immigration attorneys grows and policies shift, many applicants, like Mayra, find themselves with dwindling resources to remain in a country where they have spent decades.
New requirements
Local attorney Roxana Cortes-Mills is still making sense of a six-page memo published May 21 by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS.
For years, certain visa holders, especially refugees, could petition for permanent legal residency, also known as a green card, without leaving the U.S.
The memo outlines new requirements that most foreigners seeking green cards must apply from outside the United States. The change could impact hundreds of thousands of people who file applications for protected status while living in the country on temporary visas.
“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes,” USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said in a press release. “When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency.”
But the change leaves refugees “in limbo,” said Cortes-Mills, who serves as a legal director with the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement.
“As an immigration practitioner, when I read this memo, I couldn’t believe what I was reading,” Cortes-Mills said. “They’re trying to use a policy memorandum to undo decades of practice, and then to attack a very clear and simple section of the (Immigration and Nationality Act).”
Cortes-Mills points to the new policy as the latest in what she describes as an ongoing campaign against legal immigration.
On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the nation’s refugee program. His administration also set a limit of 7,500 refugees to be admitted to the country in 2026. The Biden administration had a cap of 100,000 in 2024.
Last year, USCIS underwent sweeping changes. The agency is one of the three branches of the Homeland Security Department tied to migration. It shifted focus from overseeing bureaucratic programs that assist in legal immigration to more strict immigration enforcement.
“More people have pending applications without a resolution,” Cortes-Mills said, “or people are no longer able to apply or fearful of applying to normalize their immigration status with these policy changes.”
Long-term impact
Curbing illegal immigration was a major campaign promise of Trump’s second term.
The world watched in early 2026 as thousands of federal immigration officers deployed to fulfill the president’s goal of mass deportations. Protesters took to the streets, and two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.
In Nebraska, a former state prison in McCook was converted to an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention facility.
Nearly a year ago, ICE carried out a workplace raid, detaining more than 70 people at an Omaha meatpacking plant. These events were widely reported and publicly discussed across the political spectrum. Local attorneys said the restructuring of the country’s legal systems is a quieter process.
Grant Friedman is an attorney with the ACLU of Nebraska. He said despite major policy shifts of the past year, there has been no change in the law as written.
“Congress has not passed any immigration reform,” Friedman said. “Laws that had been interpreted for the past 30 years to mean one thing, the executive branch has decided to interpret to mean another, and to detain a lot more people.”
Friedman and Cortes-Mills describe a “campaign” of confusion for immigrants and their attorneys. Local immigration lawyers are facing high rates of burnout. The Center for Immigrant & Refugee Advancement has a three month wait list for a consultation.
An immigration clinic that for decades operated under the University of Nebraska College of Law recently shut down.
“The (new policies) have detrimental impacts on our communities,” Friedman said, “and on the lived experience of each individual who is waking up having to decide if they should go to the grocery store, go on a walk, and risk being detained.”
The anxiety is hard to shake for Mayra.
Life was progressing as usual in her home. A row of medals hung on the wall behind her kitchen table. They were won mostly by her oldest daughter, who is interested in wrestling and cheerleading. Mayra’s son said hello as he wandered into the nearby living room to watch TV. Her husband would be home soon, and the family would sit down for dinner.
Mayra was brought to the U.S. by her mother when she was 4 years old. A few years ago, she looked into her own legal status and learned that she had been issued a deportation order when she was 8 years old. Mayra’s mother passed away when she was 18.
“I’m not at fault for my parents’ choices,” Mayra said, her voice wavering. “I’ve been here my whole life, and yes, I chose to stay here. My children are here.”
Mayra has another check-in with immigration officials scheduled for later this summer. She’s made it past a previous deportation date that was set for early 2026, on the same day as her daughter’s birthday.
A judge issued a stay of removal, allowing Mayra to remain in the United States while her visa application proceeds. The move buys her more time.
“I really — I just don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.