The Trump administration issued a sweeping policy directive on Friday requiring most temporary visa holders and humanitarian parolees living in the U.S. to return to their home countries to apply for and complete green card applications.
Policy Details
The new memo, issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), instructs agency officers to treat U.S.-based “adjustment of status” applications as an “extraordinary form of relief.” Spokesperson Zach Kahler explained, “We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly.
From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances.”
Potential Impact
Immigration lawyers warn that the policy could affect hundreds of thousands of temporary workers pursuing permanent residency from within the United States.
Rosanna Berardi, a New York immigration lawyer, noted that the change could create challenges for legal workers and humanitarian parolees, including Afghans who assisted U.S. forces and Ukrainians fleeing war. “The memo treats their choice to apply for a green card inside the U.S. as an adverse factor because their admission was temporary,” she said. “Many have nowhere safe to return to.”
Attorney Todd Pomerleau argued the policy is likely illegal. “The Immigration and Nationality Act allows individuals who were legally inspected and admitted into the country to adjust their status from within the U.S. You can’t, through a stroke of a pen, overturn a statute. I think it’s illegal, and it’s going to get shut down in court very quickly,” he said.
Expert Opinions on Legal Framework
Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior government director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, emphasized that Congress created the U.S.-based adjustment framework to prevent family separation and help employers retain foreign workers during visa backlogs.
“Since the 1950s, Congress has specifically allowed non-immigrants to adjust their status in the United States to that of a green card,” Dalal-Dheini said. “Over the course of years, they’ve slowly expanded that eligible class. The statutory scheme is well established and has been around for decades.”
Dalal-Dheini criticized the policy, stating, “This administration says they’re going to go after people who are criminals, but in the same breath, they are upending the process for people who are trying to follow the law. These are individuals who came here legally or were admitted legally … and now overnight, without any advance warning, through a policy memo, they are upending it.”
