Trump’s green-card change would send some applicants abroad to apply

Summary

Foreigners who are in the United States temporarily and want to apply for a green card will need to return to their home countries and apply there under new guidance announced by the Trump administration, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The change was described by USCIS as a move to require applicants to follow the law’s “original intent” and to close what the agency called a loophole in the current process.

NPR reported that, under USCIS’s new approach, applicants in the U.S. would generally have to leave and apply from abroad, except in “extraordinary circumstances.” USCIS officers would make the determination of whether an applicant meets that standard, NPR said, without specifying how soon the policy would take effect or how it would apply to cases already in progress.

USCIS tied the rule to how the agency described the nonimmigrant system. In the agency’s statement, it said nonimmigrants such as students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose, and that their visits should not operate as the first step in the green-card process, NPR reported.

The announcement marked what USCIS framed as a return to long-standing policy, but immigration experts and aid groups said the change disrupts decades of “adjustment of status,” the longstanding practice that has allowed many people with legal status to complete the green-card process while remaining in the U.S. NPR said that includes people married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, as well as refugees and asylum seekers.

Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS during the Biden administration, said the policy had a goal of limiting permanent residency approvals for people already in the U.S. NPR reported Rand saying senior officials in the Trump administration have repeatedly stated they want fewer people to get permanent residency because it leads to citizenship, and he added that about 600,000 people apply each year for a green card.

USCIS did not indicate a start date, NPR said, and it also did not provide details about whether applicants would have to remain outside the U.S. throughout the entire process or how the guidance would affect people whose green-card applications were already underway. In an email statement to the Associated Press, the agency said those who provide an “economic benefit” or “national interest” could likely remain in the U.S., while others would have to go abroad to apply, NPR reported.

Immigration lawyers said the practical impact could be broad and difficult to predict. Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said USCIS was trying to end decades of adjustment of status and that, in her view, “This all applies very broadly to anyone seeking a green card,” NPR reported.

Dalal-Dheini also pointed to hurdles at U.S. consulates abroad. NPR said she noted that at some consulates, visa appointment wait times could take up to more than a year, and that such delays could intersect with the requirement to return home to pursue a green card.

Aid organizations warned that requiring applicants to process immigrant visas abroad could strand families in cases where visa processing is unavailable or unsafe in their countries. World Relief wrote that the result can be “an indefinite separation of families” when a family member is told they must return home to process an immigrant visa but those visas are not being processed there, NPR reported.

Legal services organizations said they were already hearing concerns from clients about how the new guidance would be applied. Jessie De Haven, a senior staff attorney with the California Immigration Project, said the policy guidance was hard to understand and that she expected it could have a “chilling effect on people applying,” NPR reported.