The Trump administration announced on Friday that most immigrants already in the United States must now leave the country and apply for permanent residency from abroad instead of completing the process here.
Myal Greene said the change will break families apart: she warned the policy will force husbands from wives and children from parents, and urged that it be reversed by administrative reconsideration, Congress or the courts.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it will grant adjustment of status only in extraordinary circumstances and that, going forward, officers will steer applicants toward consular processing through the State Department overseas rather than adjudicate most green-card petitions inside the United States.
USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said the shift is not absolute: applicants whose cases provide an economic benefit or are otherwise in the national interest will likely be allowed to continue on their current path, while others will be asked to apply from their home countries depending on individualized circumstances. He said the change is intended to reduce the need to remove people who remain in the shadows after being denied residency and to free up USCIS to focus on priorities such as visas for victims of violent crime and human trafficking and naturalization applications.
The scale of the change is substantial in a typical year. Former USCIS official Doug Rand noted that about 1 million people apply for green cards annually and that roughly half of those applications are filed by people already living in the United States who seek to change their status without leaving. USCIS officials said consular processing would move the majority of those cases to U.S. consular offices abroad, handled by the State Department.
World Relief criticized the policy as a near halt to a long-established practice that allowed non-citizens who entered lawfully to apply for lawful permanent residency without leaving. Greene, speaking for opponents of the change, called it a “cruel, anti-family policy change” and said she hopes it will be reversed by administrative action, congressional intervention or legal challenges.
Under current immigration law, adjustment of status is the procedure that lets certain immigrants already in the United States apply for green cards without returning to their home countries. Administration officials framed the decision as restoring that separation between temporary admissions and immigrant processing: Kahler said people who enter on non-immigrant visas—students, temporary workers and tourists—are expected to be in the country for a limited purpose and time, and the system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over.
The administration also argued the change would make operations more efficient, shifting most cases to U.S. consular posts overseas and allowing USCIS to concentrate limited resources on other statutory responsibilities. Officials described the measure as a practical reallocation of work to roughly the same consular infrastructure that already interviews immigrant visa applicants in more than 100 countries.
The policy exposes a sharp tension. Supporters say routing most adjustment cases overseas follows the law and reduces overstays; critics say the effect is exclusionary and needlessly punitive for families who have built lives in the United States. Rand put that argument bluntly: "The purpose of this policy is exclusion."
The most consequential question now is whether the policy will stand long enough to reshape how hundreds of thousands of would-be permanent residents pursue green cards each year, or whether courts, Congress or a future administration will roll it back before it separates large numbers of families and reroutes an established pathway to residency.
