A new Trump administration directive could make it far harder for some immigrants already in the United States to adjust their legal status without leaving the country, a shift that may affect hundreds of thousands of people.
The guidance reaches temporary workers, refugees and parents who overstayed a visa and now have a U.S. citizen child who is at least 21 years old. For years, people in those groups could pursue adjustment of status from inside the United States, but the administration now says that process is discretionary and should not take precedence over consular processing outside the country.
That matters because the U.S.-based process has long been one of the main ways immigrants who are already living and working here could regularize their status without being separated from family while they wait. Immigration law experts said Congress created that path specifically to avoid forcing families apart, which is why the new guidance is drawing immediate alarm from immigrant advocates and attorneys.
Martha Arevalo, an immigrant-rights advocate, said the directive fits a familiar pattern. “Supposedly, the strategy is to make it so difficult for our community that we self-deport or that we go back to our home country,” she said. “But the reality is that this is our country.”
Angelica Salas was even more direct about how her organization plans to respond. “Our sister organization, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, has actually sued this administration multiple times for violations of our due process rights, for putting forward these kind of processes that only hurt our community and that divide our families,” she said. “So one more time, we’re going to take him to court.”
Immigrant rights organizations said they plan to challenge the policy in court, arguing that it would upend a process designed to let eligible people stay with their families while their cases move forward. The administration is instead pushing applicants toward consular processing abroad, a change that could require them to leave the United States and wait outside the country for a decision.
The executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law warned that the directive raises a significant risk for applicants and urged people who may be affected to consult an attorney or seek pro bono legal help to understand the possibility of deportation risk before taking any step. For families already facing long waits and uncertainty, the practical question is whether this new guidance becomes a paper policy or a hard barrier to staying together while their immigration cases are decided.
