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The State of Global Mobility in 2025
By Emilie Hyams and Ceridwen “Ceri” Koski
Disclaimer: These are individual comments/points of view from experts in the field based on their professional experiences which do not necessarily reflect companies’ or organizations’ official stands on certain topics or matters.
This newsletter series explores the evolving landscape of global mobility and immigration program management, highlighting the innovations and obstacles that define this critical field. My goal is to learn directly from legal and mobility leaders how to enhance partnerships and elevate the immigration experience—for employees, businesses, and the wider global workforce.
Global mobility is being reshaped by shifting policies and operational constraints. Employers today face a delicate balancing act: complying with increasingly complex government regulations while supporting employee flexibility and managing costs. In this climate, in-house legal teams—working closely with external counsel—are essential to keeping programs both compliant and aligned with corporate goals.
That’s why I’m thrilled to feature the perspective of Emilie Hyams, a deeply thoughtful and strategic leader who brings firsthand experience from every corner of the immigration field—private practice, Congress, and inside the Department of Homeland Security.
Her career spans a prestigious law firm, where she mastered the intricacies of employment-based immigration, and public service roles where she tackled systemic inefficiencies head-on. As a congressional staffer, she helped constituents navigate bureaucracy and advocated for policy reform. Later, as Deputy Chief of Staff and then Senior Counselor for USCIS, she gained a rare inside look at the operational complexities of the agency, leading efforts to modernize, streamline, and humanize the adjudication process.
Emilie understands better than most how internal policy shifts shape outcomes, and how stakeholder engagement can drive real improvements. Her message to in-house teams is both pragmatic and hopeful: be precise, stay current, and engage. Her unique voice—deeply informed by law, policy, and lived experience—is a vital one in today’s mobility landscape.
With great appreciation, I share Emilie’s insights in this edition of the series. Her story is not only inspiring—it’s a masterclass in how legal strategy and human empathy can co-exist at the heart of immigration law.
Ceri: I’m super excited to be able to do this Q&A with you Emilie because we were law schoolmates 20 years ago in Tucson and then worked at the same law firm in New York together. Over the years, our connection has waxed and waned with different jobs, geographies, and family events but whenever we talk it’s like no time has passed. It’s a true pleasure and honor to get your perspective on the immigration law field, from protocol to immigration policy. Welcome!
Can you talk a little bit about what drew you to immigration law and what keeps you in the field?
Emilie: Throughout my upbringing, I was surrounded by the beauty and complexity of the ‘American Dream.’ My mom, a Jewish immigrant from Morocco, shared stories of her colorful childhood and her journey to America, where she yearned for more religious freedom and rights as a woman. My father’s family immigrated to New York from Russia and Germany; I learned about pogroms and the Holocaust, coupled with lauding of the freedom and opportunities that America provided to them. Both of my parents were dedicated to providing opportunities to others, including international exchange students at our home throughout my childhood, which raised my awareness about global mobility and the international landscape. In school, I was inspired by my father, and the likes of other lawyers like Thurgood Marshall, who, through the justice system, helped level the playing field for folks to fulfill their potential. I, too, participated in cultural exchange programs and studied abroad, appreciating learning about different cultures, languages, and nations’ histories.
I was also confronted with the realities of immigration living close to the border in Arizona. I helped someone improve her English skills and study civics to pass her naturalization exam, while being powerless to help family friends whose father was detained after a traffic violation because he was undocumented, or to help coworkers seeking to normalize their immigration status at my restaurant job. So, it was no surprise that, during an internship for a talented immigration attorney, Gloria Goldman, where I could meet people from around the world, hear their stories and help them achieve their personal or professional dreams in America, I found my calling.
Ceri: You endeavored into public service early in your career serving as a congressional staffer providing immigration policy and case assistance. Can you talk a little bit about moving from private practice to the public sector and what is challenging and rewarding about serving within government in the context of immigration?
Emilie: I was blessed to work at a great immigration law firm, Fragomen, with phenomenal mentors (and colleagues like Ceri!) who taught me the fundamentals of employment-based immigration law, and who nurtured my interest in public service. While I enjoyed the work and my clients, I was frustrated with the U.S.’ unnecessarily bureaucratic immigration processes that were difficult to navigate, especially when things went off the rails. When a position opened in Senator Gillibrand’s office, I was eager to try to cut through the red tape and help improve the laws, policies, and overall processes for her constituents. The pay cut hurt, especially living in New York City, but I found the work as a congressional caseworker to be deeply rewarding and an opportunity that opened my eyes to the critical role the executive branch can play in meaningfully improving people’s lives. The role also enabled me to better understand the significant discretion that exists in the law for the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration-focused components, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to administer. At the time, we enjoyed a pro-immigration administration under President Obama that was dedicated to being responsive to congressional inquiries, so we were able to help a lot of individuals, families, and American businesses with their immigration needs within the law’s parameters, spanning from deferred action requests and stays of removal to extraordinary worker petitions filed by established institutions and companies. Yet, even in a collaborative political environment, even with discretion built into the laws, the laws themselves were—and continue to be—what hampers more reasonable access to the American Dream, and therefore to America’s progress.
I shifted to working more strictly on policy on the US Senate Committee of the Judiciary under Senator Feinstein during consideration of S.744, the comprehensive immigration reform bill, which helped me better appreciate how the legislative sausage is—or in that case– isn’t made. Having come from private practice, I was intent on closely consulting with those on the ground to ensure that provisions being considered ultimately accomplish the intended goals, without unforeseen repercussions. Nevertheless, it was challenging to get feedback from all necessary stakeholders, especially when things were moving quickly, and impossible to please everyone. Another challenge was not being able to make more targeted improvements to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for fear that amending one section would open-up a can of worms and lead to unwanted changes to other parts of the INA, resulting in complete inaction. Some of the more rewarding parts of the job were securing stays of removal for deserving individuals through private bills, collaborating with the administration to implement impactful policies such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and meeting incredible people across the country fighting to protect human and civil rights, and dedicated to promoting innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic prosperity for America through lawful immigration.
Ceri: When you made the leap from congressional staffer to working within USCIS what was the most eye-opening or surprising thing you learned?
Emilie: When I moved from being a congressional staffer to a role within USCIS, I thought I had a pretty solid understanding of how the agency worked — after all, I had spent years interacting with USCIS liaisons to congress on behalf of constituents, submitting inquiries, escalating urgent cases, and trying to troubleshoot issues. But stepping inside the agency brought a completely different level of perspective. From the outside, USCIS can seem like a single monolithic entity. My USCIS colleagues, however, were anything but bureaucrats stuck in their ways and just pushing paper. The folks I worked with were smart, hard-working, and extremely dedicated to doing good work as efficiently as possible to fulfil USCIS’ mission, with the law and homeland security as their north star. I was also impressed by the creative and critical thinking and thoughtful analysis across USCIS, constantly being directed to change policies and draft regulations, often with very tight deadlines by the administration in power. Simultaneously, because it’s an enormous component that receives millions of filings a year, staffed by about 20,000 people in a vast network of field offices, service centers, adjudications units, policy, legal, tech, data, and fraud, detection, and national security teams, inconsistencies inevitably occur. It can take time to implement new laws/policies, and to ensure that they are being administered as intended. I found that when empowered and properly resourced, USCIS’ external engagement team is excellent at reducing confusion and improving transparency and accessibility to the immigration processes that USCIS administers and informing other parts of USCIS where things are working and where there needs to be improvement.
Ceri: What is one thing you wish the public better understood about USCIS?
Emilie: I really hope that this is not a swan song—as so many of my USCIS colleagues recently departed DHS after receiving the “fork-in-road” DOGE email. What I hope people understand is that there are real human beings on the other side of their immigration filing, who have pets and children, aging parents, health issues, broken hearts, and dreams of their own, who put aside their personal lives and go above and beyond, often working nights and weekends, to ensure that USCIS is dynamic and fulfilling its mission of providing immigration benefits to those eligible. Do they sometimes get it wrong? Absolutely, but the overarching desire is to get it right, and to take pride in their work.
Hopefully, this administration will continue the past administration’s efforts to create avenues for the public to voice concerns when things go off the rails, supporting the external engagement teams at the local and headquarters level to engage with the public and have a feedback loop that results in improvements internally, which are positively felt externally.
Also, while USCIS is a fee-funded agency, its legislative mandate is enormous- supporting employment- and family-based immigration, as well as humanitarian-based immigration. Recently, USCIS successfully increased fees with the goal to facilitate improved overall administration of immigration processes. Recent cuts to staff and severe policy changes, however, and an increased focus and infusion of resources into fraud and national security vetting, will inevitably slow processing down and potentially result in policy changes that use hatchets instead of scalpels with which to approach the intersection of immigration and national security. If the agency misses the mark, hold its leadership accountable. Contact USCIS, and if its leadership is not responsive, raise your voices to Congress, DHS, and the White House.
Ceri: How do internal policy memos shape USCIS decision-making?
Emilie: They’re pivotal. Policy memoranda are the basis for training of officers and thereafter help guide them on how to interpret and apply statutes and regulations in real time. While the law sets the framework, memos fill in the procedural and evidentiary gaps. A single policy update—like adjusting evidentiary standards or adjudicatory discretion, which systems need to be checked, etc., —can dramatically shift outcomes, even when statutes remain unchanged. They also don’t require public feedback, so it can be implemented much more quickly, and help garner support from the operators during the development stages who will ultimately be required to implement them.
Ceri: What are the most common challenges in USCIS processing, from your experience?
Emilie: USCIS has made significant improvements over the course of the past few years, having reduced backlogs even as case receipts rose by over 50% (an all-time high!), and halving processing times for employment authorization documents (EADs), naturalization, and other filings. For example, between 2021 and 2025, USCIS reduced median naturalization processing times from 11.5 months to five months. It has implemented self-service field office appointment requests, online address changes through MyUSCIS, and biometrics rescheduling, and has made online and paper filing more approachable for EADs, naturalization, asylum, and adjustment of status applications. To support USCIS’ humanitarian mission, refugee processing was made more efficient, and online filing systems were developed for sponsors and beneficiaries alike, facilitating protections for vulnerable populations. With that being said, substantial technological improvements are still needed, as well as the resources invested behind them (human and monetary capital) to ensure thorough development that accomplishes policy objectives, adequate beta testing before implementation, and tech teams on stand-by to address any glitches that may occur after roll-out. USCIS still leverages legacy IT systems alongside new systems, which often cannot communicate well with each other, resulting in missed information on both sides of the filing.
While creating processing efficiencies, we worked hard to increase hiring to reduce processing times, onboarding over 2,000 employees in four years. Going back to what I hope is not ultimately a swan song, I’m concerned that the massive reduction in the workforce at USCIS over the past few months will increase processing times by USCIS, without the necessary customer experience channels to elevate individual and systemic issues. Additionally, any time there is a change in policy, proper training needs to take place to ensure consistency and to prevent bottlenecks.
Additionally, USCIS has made leaps and bounds in national security vetting over the past few years, better coordinating with partners across the interagency and improving training of its officers to separate the wheat from the chaff of threats. However, if USCIS veers away from a risk-based approach toward vetting, and adopts policies that impose arbitrary vetting that is not actually effective in identifying threats, I fear that the vetting will be less efficacious, with the additional issue of significant processing delays.
USCIS leadership also changes every four to eight years, depending on who runs the administration, so policy changes can also create bottlenecks if systems and training don’t keep pace. For example, a change in forms or eligibility rules requires retraining and potentially reengineering workflows—delays are often systemic, not individual. Stakeholder engagements, if eliminated, will reduce the agency’s ability to identify issues happening on the ground, limit trust from the public, and result in inefficiencies for the agency, businesses, families, and those seeking humanitarian protection.
Ceri: USCIS has a wide adjudicatory scope—from family to humanitarian to employment-based petitions. How does it maintain consistency?
Emilie: At least up until recently, USCIS has employed specialists across the various fields within immigration law, many of whom have decades of experience in their particular area of focus. While things are rapidly changing at the agency, the primary ways that USCIS has worked to maintain consistency have been through providing basic training for adjudications officers and subsequent training specific to the officer’s portfolio, centralized guidance, supervisory review, and quality assurance for its workforce. Inevitably, there’s variation across field offices and service centers, and when systemic, those managing the relevant directorate are responsible for correcting course through enhanced training. At least during my time at USCIS, policy advisors, operations managers with adjudications experience, fraud and national security specialists, and legal counsel, who have the relevant specialization in employment-, family-, or humanitarian-based immigration, are involved in the development of policy and training, and again are involved if the agency is sued. Especially if stakeholder engagement is reduced, quality assurance mechanisms are essential to ensure uniform application of policy, especially as legal landscapes evolve.
Ceri: How is USCIS adapting to increasing digitization and modernization efforts?
Emilie: The agency has made progress with electronic filing and case tracking, but full digital integration is still a work in progress. Digitization improves transparency and efficiency, but also requires significant investment and cultural change. Moving away from paper means rethinking not just tools, but entire workflows.
Ceri: From a technological point of view, where do you see USCIS in the next 5 and 10 years. For example, majority online filing or using machine learning to help write requests for evidence?
Emilie: In the past few years, three of former Director Ur Jaddou’s priorities were Increasing Hiring and Improving Employee Morale; Strengthening USCIS Fiscal Management; and Promoting Efficiency in USCIS Adjudications. With the support of more hands on-deck, expanded premium processing, and a new fee rule, USCIS was able to restore cash reserves and therefore invest significant resources into leveraging technology to improve accessibility to immigration forms, reduce data entry errors, and improve overall efficiencies. We worked hard to bring as many forms as possible online, and to build online self-service options, such as for field office appointment requests, biometrics rescheduling, and address changes. For paper-filed forms, we improved electronic ingestion. We also invested real resources into improving electronic information systems, such as ELIS, and central user platforms such as myUSCIS, as well as improving electronic connectivity between USCIS, CBP, and Department of State databases. Furthermore, USCIS has been leveraging case automating processes for quite some time, and really increased automation efforts over the past few years, employing algorithms to address non-discretionary elements, eliminating human error on areas that don’t require human judgment, improving background checks and national security, and cutting down on backlogs while preserving the integrity of the process.
If USCIS were to continue this momentum, in addition to advancement with artificial intelligence, we would unquestionably see a continued expansion of online filing and case management systems. However, candidly, it’s hard to predict where USCIS will be in the next five to 10 years. There have been radical reductions in the workforce across the agency, an increased investment of resources in fraud, detection, and national security vetting, and a focus from the current administration on enforcement rather than on immigration benefits. Whether continued investment in technology occurs will depend on personnel capacity, funding, and continued emphasis on efficiency in adjudications. The next five to 10 years will be pivotal in determining how far innovations can go in transforming the adjudications process. That said, technology isn’t a cure-all. One of the biggest lessons from past modernization efforts is that automation must be implemented thoughtfully, with transparency and fairness at the forefront, and lots and lots of testing.
Ceri: If an attorney or immigration expert is looking to work within USCIS what should they expect?
Emilie: If an attorney or immigration is looking to work within USCIS, they should expect to work with smart, capable, and dedicated colleagues. While there is the usual stubbornness to change when joining any organization, considering that policies and operations often change every four years, staff have become extraordinarily flexible. The workforce hails from across government, including the Hill and the military, as well as the private sector, and when empowered to do so, discussion about improving policies and processes benefits from the diversity of backgrounds and results ultimately in a better policy.
I was surprised to learn how many of my colleagues across USCIS were also immigration attorneys before joining the agency, often attracted to USCIS’ mission. Whether drafting or providing legal guidance on policy considerations and operations, managing operations, litigation strategizing or handling appeals, there are many roles at USCIS that benefit from an attorney’s skill set and legal background.
If I were able to start my immigration career from scratch, I would have loved to join USCIS as a civil servant, which has embraced its workforce’s desire to move within the agency and learn different aspects of the field, and supported employees detailing to other agencies, Senate and House judiciary committees, and even the White House. I hope current leadership preserves that for the workforce.
Ceri: What advice would you give to in-house corporate immigration managers and attorneys engaging with USCIS today?
Emilie: Please be precise, proactive, and respectful. USCIS officers are doing difficult work with complicated and sometimes antiquated systems, some online and some on paper, under intense scrutiny and challenging deadlines. Strong documentation, clarity in legal arguments, and timely responses make a difference. Also, stay current on policy updates—they may change how cases are analyzed. Participate in stakeholder engagements and as appropriate, provide feedback and leverage existing channels for elevating areas of concern, both on individual cases and systemic. It helps the agency improve. Document any and all correspondence with USCIS, and use tools like myUSCIS. Last but not least, don’t forget the mighty benefit of the Freedom of Information Act request.
