Attorney Loren Locke is an immigration expert often cited by the press.
"Employers like Walmart have no choice but to stop employing workers who lack US work authorization," immigration attorney Loren Locke told Daily Mail. "But it is tricky to comply when they have a large number of current employees whose work permits are getting cancelled prematurely."
https://www.mensjournal.com/news/walmart-workers-vanish-overnight-and-employees-sound-the-alarm
Unsurprisingly, Home Depot clarified that while it has a no-solicitation policy, it is not involved in ICE operations and wasn’t notified of the raids. Still, experts say that the broader immigration issue remains unresolved. Rick Hermanns, CEO of HireQuest, warns that inconsistent enforcement creates economic uncertainty by encouraging under-the-table labor while punishing compliant businesses. Meanwhile, immigration attorney Loren Locke criticized the raids as targeting easy, non-threatening individuals rather than solving deeper problems.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/stocks/HD/pressreleases/33105886/ice-raids-at-home-depots-hd-shake-the-construction-industry-as-labor-shortage-worsens/
“Employers like Walmart have no choice but to stop employing workers who lack US work authorization,” said immigration attorney Loren Locke. “But it is tricky to comply when they have a large number of current employees whose work permits are getting cancelled prematurely.”
https://www.hrgrapevine.com/us/content/article/2025-07-02-walmart-hit-by-new-immigration-legislation-lawsuit-over-hiring-practices
The legal situation is complex and extremely high-risk for large employers, according to Loren Locke, an immigration attorney in Georgia.
'Employers like Walmart have no choice but to stop employing workers who lack US work authorization,' she told DailyMail.com.
'But it is tricky to comply when they have a large number of current employees whose work permits are getting cancelled prematurely.'
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not directly notified employers about which workers are losing their status.
Instead, a March federal filing by Trump officials said employers carried 'constructive knowledge' if they continued to employ the migrants using the Biden-era program.
According to Locke, that shifted legal responsibility on employers like Walmart. The companies can be held legally accountable for keeping workers on staff that relied on the visa program.
But corporate I-9 management systems are often not designed to flag sudden early terminations. The Trump administration's decision to cancel the program doesn't allow companies to easily search which CHNV visas are now cancelled.
Complicating matters further, the Biden-era permit falls under the same immigration employment category as other immigration work programs.
These problems make it nearly impossible for most employers to separate CHNV applicants from staffers on still-in-place visa programs.
For many retailers, the paperwork issue has created a thorny situation that could put them in trouble with the Trump administration if they keep employees.
But if they do comply with the Trump administration's orders, asking employees about their visa status could also leave companies susceptible to discrimination lawsuits.
Locke called the sudden shift an 'immediate compliance crisis for retailers.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-14799717/walmart-job-cuts-staff-panic-trump-immigration-orders.html
“We’re seeing policy whiplash that’s creating operational chaos,” Loren Locke, a business immigration attorney and former U.S. Department of State consular officer, told Sourcing Journal. “This instability makes it impossible for businesses to plan long-term investments or really changes of any kind.”
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“Unlike conventional farming operations that rely more on mechanization than manpower, the sustainable methods used in regenerative cotton operations benefit from the farmworkers’ special expertise,” Locke said. “Immigration enforcement actions could drive away experienced farmworkers and could do so at points in the cotton season that are particularly devastating to the outcome. It is just unrealistic to think that farmers could replace their current farmworkers on the fly with willing U.S. workers with adequate skill.”
Better Cotton—the world’s largest cotton sustainability program, which operates in 22 countries including the U.S. and accounts for 22 percent of global cotton production—echoed Locke’s sentiment, but noted that the fallout will likely have a “relatively low impact on the U.S. cotton sector [which is ranked as the fourth-largest producer worldwide, according to Mordor Intelligence] when compared to other commodities like fruit, vegetables and dairy.”
A representative from Better Cotton added that most U.S. cotton farms now rely on foreign nationals who come to the U.S. temporarily to perform seasonal agricultural labor, aka H-2A workers. Through this program, farms are able to meet labor demands while maintaining protections for U.S. workers’ wages and working conditions.
Still, it’s far from a permanent solution. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, H-2A workers are not allowed to stay for longer than one year, and the approval process can take up to three months, posing additional logistical challenges.
“Whether they have current U.S. work authorization or not, individuals employed in agriculture—including those on H-2A visas—retain significant legal protections under federal law,” Locke said. “But ICE raids can create a climate of fear that effectively nullifies these protections, as many become too afraid to report violations or assert their rights.”
https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/labor/trumps-ice-raids-still-regenerative-agricultures-growth-1234751732/
Atlanta-based immigration attorney Loren Locke says that the current sweeps of home improvement store parking lots are doing nothing to solve the country’s complicated immigration situation. Locke noted that while day laborers who gather at home improvement store parking lots skew heavily toward immigrants and disproportionately lack U.S. work authorization, there is no reason to think the population is a good source of dangerous criminal immigrants.
“Rather, they seem more like easy pickings for ICE to hit daily arrest quotas,” Locke said.
She points to the complex web of immigration programs that have evolved over the years, creating an unsustainable system.
“We are in such a mess right now because there are millions of workers in the U.S. who are in this gray immigration status,” Locke said. “They were allowed in, and now we are going back to treating them like they are all criminals who need to be deported immediately.”
Locke pointed out that there are children who were bestowed DACA status and are now grandparents.
“This has not been fixed for their entire adult life,” Locke said.
“I think the surrounding consulates are willing to absorb extra work, and they’ll do it,” said Loren Locke, another former consular officer. “Is that going to magically give them the capacity to do it as fast as everybody would like? No, because they still have their own backlogs. They still have their own urgent cases.”
Some visa applicants may be able to get an expedited appointment, but those circumstances are limited. A foreign-born doctor helping COVID-19 patients may be granted an expedited appointment to return to the U.S. after traveling abroad, but a foreign citizen who works at a U.S. tech company and could work remotely would likely be denied, lawyers said.
“It doesn’t matter how critical your reason was to leave. It’s how important it is that you go back that a consular officer actually looks at,” said Loren Locke, a former consular officer. “‘I wanted to go home, and now I want to go back to my job.’ That’s not an emergency.”
A federal judge in California ruled in favor of the Dvash-Banks family in 2019, finding the citizenship statute “does not require a person born during their parents’ marriage to demonstrate a biological relationship with both of their married parents.”
The other couple’s case remains pending in federal court in New Jersey, where they now reside, according to Morris, one of their lawyers.
Loren Locke, an immigration lawyer and former State Department consular officer, said the change from the department’s long-standing interpretation is “a pretty exciting development, and an overdue one.”
“It really blows it open. There will be a lot more families,” she said.
But former officials acknowledged that withdrawing a proclamation billed as a way to help U.S. workers, at a time when many Americans are out of work, could be tricky politically.
“The reason the Muslim ban got attention first is it’s just a more visible issue,” said Loren Locke, an immigration attorney and a former State Department consular officer. “These other proclamations were less controversial, even though they were hugely — and continue to be hugely — impactful.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday the president is expected to take additional immigration-related policy actions next week. She nor another White House spokesperson offered further details.
But former officials acknowledged that withdrawing a proclamation billed as a way to help U.S. workers, at a time when many Americans are out of work, could be tricky politically.
“The reason the Muslim ban got attention first is it’s just a more visible issue,” said Loren Locke, an immigration attorney and a former State Department consular officer. “These other proclamations were less controversial, even though they were hugely — and continue to be hugely — impactful.”
Ending a proclamation aimed at suspending foreign citizens “who present risk to the U.S. labor market,” as the proclamations are titled, could even prove divisive among the pro-labor factions of the Democratic party.
"Filing October 1st versus October 2nd makes a huge difference, but there's not time between September 24th and September 30 to prepare the [public charge questionnaire]," said Loren Locke, an immigration lawyer at Ford Harrison and former consular officer.
"I really think that USCIS has become so burdened with the complexity of its own processes that it's really in a bind now to adjudicate anything in a timely manner," said Loren Locke of Ford Harrison, a former consular officer. "This is adding complexity, so I would think it's going to add time."
Such visa delays caused by additional requirements — which USCIS predicted would impact more than 2.1 million people — can bring steep consequences for foreign workers, who could find themselves unable to renew driver's licenses or enroll their children in school without necessary visa approvals, she explained.
"It's really disruptive in the United States to be a person who relies on driving a car, and then lose your driver's license," she said. "It makes it really hard for these families to function."
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But Locke, the former consular officer, questioned the value of additional biometrics collection when USCIS already takes fingerprints from visa applicants.
"I find it incredibly invasive," she said. "I do not understand why the methods they already have are not enough. I don't think it's common at all for fingerprints to be ambiguous."
Loren Locke, an immigration attorney at FordHarrison LLP and former consular officer, told Law360 that the new exemptions will likely still keep entry-level hires blocked from entering the U.S. on new visas, but will allow more essential and experienced employees to take jobs in the U.S.
"It feels like a real unraveling of the proclamation," she said. "I think this looks like the government bending to pressure from the private sector."
“‘It's going to actually remake the body of immigrants coming to the United States,’ immigration attorney Loren Locke told Law 360.”
“A 60-day pause on green cards overseas may do little to alter the makeup of U.S. immigration long term, but if the ban is extended, "it's going to actually remake the body of immigrants coming to the United States," said Loren Locke, an immigration attorney at FordHarrison and former consular officer.”
"There are just so many things in immigration law that are so strict and unforgiving about paperwork that we don't know yet how it will all be fixed on the back end," said Loren Locke, an immigration lawyer at Ford Harrison and former consular officer. "There are going to be a lot of people who need fixing."
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But that's not an option for everyone, particularly if an individual's country of citizenship is also included in the ban, limiting which other countries they could visit for two weeks. Locke said she has a Chinese client who had planned to spend two weeks in the Netherlands, but those plans were foiled when the country was added to the ban.
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"There are a lot of emergency scenarios like that that immigration practitioners are dealing with this week and last week," said Locke, who had a client on an O-1 visa for people with extraordinary abilities get stuck in the U.K.
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"It's been cheaper, faster and with less pushback from the government to actually travel and get a new visa, come in with that, rather than get an extension of status from inside the U.S.," said Locke, noting that USCIS has ramped up scrutiny of employment-based immigration requests under the Trump administration.
But with consular offices closing, and travel becoming riskier as governments impose entry restrictions and urge people to stay home to mitigate the virus' spread, "the calculus has completely changed," Locke said.
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"We're particularly poorly situated for a knee-jerk transition to digital. We're just not ready at all," said Locke.
The roll-out has also been "shoddy" and "last-minute," said Loren Locke of Ford Harrison LLP, a former consular officer, leaving immigration lawyers and applicants — some of whom may have had their interviews, the final step of the process, scheduled months in advance for next week — guessing at how to prepare.
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Locke predicted that the confusion will lead to inconsistent decisions across consulates, and even between officers at the same post, as to what amount of information will be enough.
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But in its current state, the form, while informative, is not designed for consular officers to make predictions about future medical conditions, on top of an economic analysis of what those conditions might cost, Locke said.
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Both Locke and Strashnoy said that consular officers are not qualified to make those assessments, which could lead to improper denials.
"Some consular officers may not be qualified, they may not have enough time to make a fully thought-out decision because their workload is very heavy," Strashnoy said. "So it creates a lot of pressure to do things relatively quickly. And when you do it relatively quickly, sometimes, you don't make the right decision."
And moreover, said Locke, this additional burden and time spent reviewing an applicant's medical records and anticipated costs will come at the expense of other factors an officer weighs during an interview, including evaluating whether a marriage is legitimate or whether an applicant could pose a national security threat.
"I hate to see any changes that distract the consular office from the primary duty of protecting the security of the United States," Locke said.
To get answers, I turned to Google. But I soon realized I was out of my depth and should instead talk to actual, real-life experts. I then reached out to two immigration attorneys: Joseph Rosen of Immigration Law Group, P.C. and Loren Locke of Ford & Harrison LLP.
“It’s really all very convoluted,” Locke told me toward the end of our phone conversation on the topic. So buckle up, Five Stripers, it’s time for a rank amateur to dive head-first into the complex world of immigration law!
"I expect that the U.S. consulates in India are going to be particularly affected because they will [potentially] have a lot of people that fall into this extra screen, and they have a lot of people that want to come here," said Loren Locke of Ford & Harrison LLP, who formerly served as a consular officer in Mexico.
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In general, Locke said, this could be a step toward President Donald Trump's goal of "extreme vetting."