The Trump administration said Friday that people in the United States on temporary visas who want green cards must return to their home countries to apply through consular processing, a sharp change that could affect students, temporary workers and tourists already living here lawfully.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson Zach Kahler said the policy applies to non-immigrant visa holders and is meant to keep a visit from becoming the first step in a Green Card process. He 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.”
Kahler said the agency’s view is that “our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over” and that letting them stay and apply from inside the country should not be the norm. He said returning applicants to their home countries lowers the chance that people denied residency will disappear into the country illegally, and that following the law shifts most of these cases to State Department consular offices abroad. It also frees USCIS resources for other work, including visas for victims of violent crime and human trafficking, naturalization applications and other priorities.
The change lands with real force because, in a typical year, about 1 million people apply for green cards, according to former USCIS official Doug Rand, and half of those applicants apply from inside the United States to change their status while they are living here. Rand said, “The purpose of this policy is exclusion.” He added, “Remember that Trump has banned people from over 100 countries from returning to the U.S., so forcing them to go abroad for consular processing is no pathway at all.”
For years, the existing practice allowed non-citizens who entered the United States lawfully and later qualified for lawful permanent resident status to adjust status without leaving the country. World Relief said the new approach largely ends that longstanding practice. The group called the change “cruel” and “anti-family,” while president and CEO Myal Greene said, “This policy, impacting individuals who meet the legal requirements for a green card, will force apart husbands from wives and children from their parents.”
Greene also said, “There’s simply no compelling reason for this cruel, anti-family policy change, and I hope and pray it will be reversed, whether by administrative reconsideration, congressional action or the courts.” The administration, meanwhile, framed the move as a way to “make our system fairer and more efficient,” shifting most applications to U.S. consular offices abroad and reserving domestic resources for other cases.
The fight now turns on how broadly the new approach will be applied and how many would-be immigrants will be pushed out of the country to finish a process they had expected to complete from within it.
