In a surprising shift, the Trump administration has announced that foreign nationals seeking green cards must leave the United States and apply from their home countries. This decision, unveiled on Friday, has raised significant concerns among aid organizations, immigration attorneys, and the immigrant community.
For more than fifty years, individuals with legal status in the U.S.—including those married to American citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees—have been allowed to pursue permanent residency without leaving the country. However, the new directive from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requires that temporary visitors wishing to become lawful permanent residents return home to submit their applications, with exceptions made only for “extraordinary circumstances.” USCIS officials will determine if applicants qualify under these circumstances.
The agency articulated that nonimmigrants, such as students and temporary workers, come to the U.S. for specific, short-term purposes, asserting that their stays should not be viewed as a stepping stone toward permanent residency. This announcement marks another step in the administration’s ongoing efforts to tighten legal immigration pathways for those already in the country and for prospective immigrants.
Historically, hundreds of thousands of individuals have applied for green cards from within the U.S. each year. Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS during the Biden administration, noted that the policy’s intent is to reduce the number of people obtaining permanent residency, as this status often leads to citizenship. Currently, around 600,000 individuals apply for green cards from inside the U.S. annually.
USCIS has yet to specify when this new policy will take effect, whether individuals will need to remain abroad throughout the process, or how it will affect those with existing green card applications. The agency indicated that individuals who can demonstrate an “economic benefit” or fulfill a “national interest” may be allowed to stay in the U.S. while applying, while others will be required to go abroad.
This policy change adds to the administration’s previous measures aimed at restricting entry for individuals from numerous countries, leading to outright travel bans for some and delays in visa processing for others. Experts warn that mandating individuals from these nations to leave for green card applications could result in lengthy bans on their return.
World Relief, a humanitarian organization, expressed serious concerns about the implications for families. They highlighted the potential for a “Catch-22” scenario where non-citizen family members would be forced to return to countries where immigrant visas are not currently being processed, leading to prolonged family separations.
While USCIS characterized the new rule as a restoration of the law’s original intent, immigration lawyers and advocacy groups countered that many have long been eligible to adjust their status within the U.S. They pointed out that returning home isn’t an option for everyone, especially for those in unsafe situations or those lacking access to embassies, such as in Afghanistan, where the U.S. Embassy has been closed since the 2021 withdrawal.
Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, criticized the move as a drastic departure from decades of established practices regarding status adjustments. He noted that this policy could broadly affect various groups, including spouses of U.S. citizens, individuals with humanitarian protections, skilled workers, students, and religious visa holders.
Compounding the uncertainty, wait times for visa appointments at some U.S. consulates can exceed a year, further complicating the situation for those affected. Immigration attorneys are currently analyzing the policy changes to understand their full implications.
Organizations that assist immigrants report an uptick in inquiries from clients anxious about how this new guidance will impact them. Jessie De Haven, a senior staff attorney with the California Immigration Project, remarked on the difficulty of interpreting the new rules and the potential chilling effect they may have on individuals considering applications.
