This is not the first time a senior official from the U.S. immigration agency has left during President Trump's second term. In mid-May, Michael Banks — who headed Border Patrol and was previously Texas's border czar under Governor Greg Abbott — resigned. What these departures have in common is that they have not brought any policy changes: the immigration enforcement machinery continues to operate in the same direction, with only the leadership faces changing.
This time is different in one respect: Rosenblum is not a policy implementer, but a keeper of numbers. According to WIRED, he previously headed the immigration statistics office during Trump's first term, continued through Biden's administration, and returned under Trump's second term. He committed to releasing data faster and in greater detail when he took on the role of overseeing agency-wide statistics in 2023. According to Common Dreams, under Biden, his office grew from 11 to 45 people and began releasing monthly figures on ICE and CBP arrests, deportations — the type of data that has not been released since the beginning of Trump's second term.
When the agency responsible for data is shrunk and information is withheld, applicants have virtually no way to independently verify the policies being applied to their own cases.
Mechanism: data disappears, policies become harder to verify
This development affects the Vietnamese-American community not through a tax or interest rate, but through the ability to independently monitor what is happening to their immigration cases. The DHS statistics page on ICE detentions, Border Patrol apprehensions, and deportations has not been updated since February 11, 2025. Meanwhile, according to Saigon Sentinel, at the end of May 2026 the Trump administration issued a directive requiring people with temporary visas and some humanitarian parolees to return home while waiting for green card applications, reversing the long-standing adjustment of status procedure. When the agency responsible for data is reduced and information is withheld, applicants — many of whom have family members who are U.S. citizens, international students, and laid-off technology workers — have virtually no way to independently verify the scale or actual direction of the policies being applied to their own cases.
Who says what
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior expert at the American Immigration Council, called the allegation that Rosenblum deliberately falsified deportation data an outright lie, and noted that Rosenblum's office was repeatedly blocked from releasing data that had previously been public. For its part, DHS, a spokesperson declined to comment on Rosenblum's personal decision. Meanwhile in the House, some Democratic representatives have called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign after she left a hearing session before answering all questions about deportation operations; Representative Bennie Thompson announced he would subpoena her to reappear before the committee.
What to watch
Three points to pay attention to in the coming months: whether Congress will actually subpoena Secretary Noem or if it's just a threat; whether DHS will release deportation and detention data again that Rosenblum's office previously managed; and whether the directive requiring green card applications to be filed from abroad will be formally implemented or continue in its current ambiguous state. For those holding temporary visas, waiting for a green card, or having family members in the adjustment of status process, the most practical thing to do is keep complete records of communications with USCIS and consult an immigration attorney before responding to any unusual questions from immigration officers.
Read the original reports at the source links below.