USCIS orders green-card applicants to apply abroad

USCIS green-card – The Trump administration, through USCIS, announced a new rule requiring many foreigners in the U.S. who want a green card to leave and apply in their home country, with only “extraordinary circumstances” as an exception. Lawyers and aid groups warned the chang

On Friday, USCIS announced a sudden shift that would force many foreigners already living in the United States to leave before they can pursue permanent residency.

The agency said foreigners in the U.S. who want to apply for a green card and become lawful permanent residents will have to return to their home country and apply there—except in “extraordinary circumstances.” USCIS officers would decide whether an applicant meets that exception. The change. announced as a surprise. immediately threw legal offices and aid groups into a scramble to understand who would be affected and when.

For more than half a century. foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete the entire green-card process from within the United States. That included people married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and political asylum seekers, among others.

In its statement, USCIS framed the move as a correction to how the system has been used. “Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process,” the agency said.

The practical impact is harder to measure in the immediate aftermath because USCIS did not specify when the policy would take effect. whether people would need to stay outside the U.S. for the entire process, or whether the rule would apply to individuals whose green-card applications are already underway.

USCIS’s statement also landed in a political climate where immigration pathways have already faced tightening. The agency’s announcement is the latest step in a Trump administration effort to make legal immigration more difficult. and it comes alongside other moves restricting entry from dozens of countries—ranging from outright travel bans in some cases to pauses in visa processing for others.

Doug Rand. a former senior advisor at USCIS during the Biden administration. said the stated rationale points to a deeper intent. “The goal of this policy is very explicit. Senior officials in this administration have said over and over that they want fewer people to get permanent residency because permanent residency is a path to citizenship and they want to block that path for as many people as possible. ” Rand said. He added that about 600,000 people already in the U.S. apply each year for a green card.

USCIS, in an emailed statement, said the distinction may hinge on whether an applicant provides an “economic benefit” or “national interest.” It did not lay out a full set of criteria, and it offered no clear timeline for implementation.

One reason the announcement quickly drew alarm is the fear that moving processing abroad—without ensuring that processing actually functions abroad—could bar families from reuniting.

World Relief. a humanitarian and refugee resettlement organization. warned that people could face a “Catch-22.” “If families are told that the non-citizen family member must return to his or her country of origin to process their immigrant visa. but immigrant visas are not being processed there. it’s a Catch-22. These policies will effectively create an indefinite separation of families,” the organization wrote.

USCIS described its policy as a return to “the original intent of the law” and a closing of a “loophole.” But immigration lawyers and aid groups pushed back on the idea that the approach is a new correction rather than a change to decades of practice.

Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said USCIS was upending longstanding processing routes. “USCIS is trying to upend decades of processing of adjustment of status,” Dalal-Dheini said. She added that the guidance applies broadly to anyone seeking a green card. pointing to groups USCIS said could be covered—people married to U.S. citizens. applicants with humanitarian protection. and holders of work visas. including doctors and professionals. as well as student and religious visa holders.

For some people, leaving to apply abroad may not be feasible even if they want to comply. Dalal-Dheini said that at some U.S. consulates abroad, wait times for a visa appointment could take up to more than a year.

In the middle of that uncertainty. lawyers spent Friday afternoon reading the policy memo and the agency’s announcement. looking for the lines that would decide who must go and who might stay. Organizations that provide legal and other assistance to immigrants described fielding urgent questions from clients who were trying to understand what the change would mean for their cases.

“It’s really hard to tell how this is going to be applied,” said Jessie De Haven, senior staff attorney with the California Immigration Project, a nonprofit that provides legal services to low income immigrants. “I do think it might have a chilling effect on people applying.”

The shift raises a question that runs through every unanswered detail: if green-card processing depends on conditions outside the U.S. and those conditions vary widely by country. how will USCIS weigh “extraordinary circumstances” in real time—especially for people who are already in the country and waiting on decisions that may now require leaving behind their lives while they search for a place to apply?.

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