U.S. immigration officials said Friday that foreigners in the United States who want a green card must leave and apply in their home country, a change that could affect hundreds of thousands of applicants a year and upend a process that has allowed people to apply inside the country for more than half a century.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announcement says the new approach includes exceptions for extraordinary circumstances, but immigration lawyers say the shift has already set off alarm. “It has a chilling effect because we have some cases that we were going to proceed and I can tell already, we should wait and see what’s going on,” said Flavia Santos Lloyd, whose phone began ringing with worried clients after the policy was announced.
For decades, foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete permanent residence in the United States, including people married to U.S. citizens, workers on visas, students, refugees and people seeking asylum. Friday’s change marks a sharp break from that practice and appears to be part of a Trump administration pivot toward legal immigration pathways after a period focused mainly on people in the U.S. illegally.
That shift is already drawing confusion and concern from immigration lawyers and advocacy groups, who say it is not clear how the rule will work in practice or what kinds of cases will qualify for exceptions. USCIS said, “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,” but the agency gave no immediate public explanation of where the line will be drawn.
Some lawyers expect the policy to be challenged in court. Charles Kuck said he expects legal action and called the change “simply an attempt to try to limit and scare people away from the legal immigration process,” adding, “This is a scare tactic.” The practical effect, for now, is uncertainty for applicants who may be ready to file but are now being told to stop and wait.
What happens next depends on how aggressively the policy is enforced and whether judges or officials carve out broad enough exceptions to keep cases moving. Until that is answered, green card applicants inside the United States are left facing a new rule that could force them out of the country to pursue a benefit they have long been able to seek from within it.
