This sponsored column is by Law Office of James Montana PLLC. All questions about it should be directed to James Montana, Esq., Janice Chen, Esq., and Taryn Druge, Esq., practicing attorneys at The Law Office of James Montana PLLC, an immigration-focused law firm located in Falls Church, Virginia. The legal information given here is general in nature. If you want legal advice, contact us for an appointment.
On March 12, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security reactivated a long-dormant part of the United States Code – the Smith Act, also known as the Alien Registration Act of 1940.
The Smith Act required that all aliens in the United States register, and be fingerprinted, at a local post office. With war looming in 1940, the U.S. government was concerned about the presence of foreign nationals in the United States, and so it sought to collect information about those present.
Attorney General Robert Jackson promised immigrants that they would not be punished for registration – he stated, in a radio address, that those with “irregularity connected with their entrance” would “receive all consideration” for immigration relief if they registered, and the Justice Department followed through on that promise by waiving the deportation of thousands of registrants. After the war, the fingerprinting requirement fell into desuetude but was never removed from the ever-growing corpus of federal law.
The Trump administration, in Executive Order 14159 (“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”), directed the Department of Homeland Security to institute procedures to reactivate the Smith Act’s fingerprinting and registration requirement. On March 12, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security issued a regulation (technically, an Interim Final Rule) with the following requirements:
- All aliens 14 years of age and older who are not previously registered and fingerprinted must do so within 30 days of entering the country.
- Parents or legal guardians must apply for similarly situated alien children.
- Any similarly situated alien who turns 14 must register within 30 days.
The registration process starts online, with the submission of a new form (Form G-325R) followed by an appointment at a local application support center (ASC) for fingerprinting.
In theory, the registration process kicks off on April 11th – that’s tomorrow! – but we expect that the requirement, like so many other Trump administration immigration innovations, will be enjoined. On March 31, 2025, plaintiffs sued the Department of Homeland Security in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the new registration requirement from going into effect, and a declaration setting aside the new registration requirement as illegal.
In essence, the plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration failed to comply with the Administration Procedure Act, and, by that failure, is attempting to promulgate a highly consequential regulation illegally.
On Tuesday this week, Judge Trevor McFadden – a Trump-appointed federal district court judge – held a hearing to consider the request for a preliminary injunction. Press coverage of the hearing suggests that Judge McFadden was skeptical of the government’s position. He called the reinstitution of the fingerprinting requirement “a big switcheroo” and suggested that the government had “skipped a lot of steps” which might be required under the Administrative Procedure Act. Judge McFadden indicated that he will issue a decision on the preliminary injunction before the program goes into effect tomorrow.
We predict that that Judge McFadden will issue that injunction, and the new fingerprinting requirement will not go into effect pending further litigation. As so frequently, the Trump administration has chosen speed over efficacy in its federal litigation,
If the fingerprinting requirement goes into effect, it is not easy to say whether immigrants should register or not. We decline to take a general position here, because the answer will differ according to each individual situation. Many immigrants – including green card holders, those with pending asylum applications, those who have pending immigration court cases, and visaholders who were fingerprinted before arrival – do not need to register anyway under current rules. We advise anyone who thinks that they need to register to consult with an attorney first.
As always, we are grateful for your questions and comments, and will do our best to respond.
