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By Dan Gooding and Billal Rahman
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Foreign students, temporary workers and some other immigrants looking to become green-card holders now face having to return to their home country to get their U.S. residency, following a memo released by the Trump administration on Friday.
The move by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is the latest effort to tighten the legal immigration system, which the White House argues has been abused for decades. The memo emphasized that Congress set out a pathway to permanent residency that it said was not being followed.
“We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly," USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said in a press release. "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."
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The change could have a major impact on thousands of immigrants who might usually remain in the U.S. while their applications are pending, one former official told Newsweek.
"Requiring more applicants to pursue immigrant visas abroad through consular processing increases uncertainty, delays, travel burdens, and the risk of lengthy separation or disruption to employment," said Adam Klein, a co-founder at Globali.ai and former Department of Homeland Security senior official.
"While USCIS frames the memo as a return to the 'original intent' of the law, adjustment of status has long functioned as an important mechanism for preserving family unity and business continuity where individuals are otherwise eligible to immigrate lawfully. In many respects, this policy appears to prioritize formalism and deterrence over efficiency and stability."
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New Green-Card Rules: What to Know
The memo, shared with USCIS officers, reiterates that the process allowing applicants to obtain a green card without leaving the United States was never intended to replace the traditional pathway of applying for an immigrant visa from abroad.
As part of the updated policy, officials said that even if applicants technically meet the requirements for permanent residency when they are about to apply in the U.S., as their visa comes to an end, they would still need to return home and wait for the U.S. State Department to process their case.
The memo formally directs USCIS officers to treat adjustment of status (AOS) as an exceptional, discretionary benefit, and to apply that standard more strictly in practice. It emphasizes that AOS is an “extraordinary” form of relief that allows someone to skip the normal process of applying for a green card from abroad, and that it was never meant to replace that system.
Officers are instructed to keep this principle at the center of their decision-making, reinforcing that even applicants who meet all eligibility requirements are not entitled to approval.
"This announcement by USCIS to further restrict legal immigration within the United States by effectively eliminating the Adjustment of Status process will not only cause severe hardship to families of U.S. citizens forced to separate for an indefinite time period, and to U.S. employers who follow the extensive and burdensome immigration process to seek permanent residency for their foreign employees, but it will also result in the loss of millions of dollars in fees paid to USCIS through these applications," Eva Golinger, an independent immigration attorney based in New York City, told Newsweek.
Golinger said the fees, usually around $2,500 per application, keep USCIS afloat, as it does not receive funding from Congress. She also said that U.S. consulates and embassies will be negatively impacted when they already have significant backlogs of cases.
"I see no upside to this cruel and inefficient decision," she added.
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What U.S. Immigration Law Says
U.S. immigration law allows certain noncitizens to apply for green cards from inside the country, and in many cases to remain while those applications are pending.
The statute also makes clear that adjustment of status is discretionary, not guaranteed, and was designed as an exception to the standard process of applying for a visa from abroad.
The new USCIS memo does not change that legal framework but reinforces the government’s authority to deny applications—even for otherwise eligible applicants—based on factors such as overstays, status violations, or efforts to bypass the traditional consular system.
There has long been a legal mechanism in which:
- A person can file for adjustment of status while in the U.S.
- In many cases, they can remain while it’s pending and may receive work/travel authorization
"This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes," Kahler said. "When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency."
Elissa Taub, a partner at immigration firm Siskind Susser in Tennessee, told Newsweek that USCIS has not once openly questioned the legitimacy of applying for green cards within the U.S. during her 20 years of practice.
"The law actually creates this pathway and sets forth all kinds of rules for determining who qualifies for this benefit," she said. "Now they are trying to gaslight us into believing that these applications – which they have been approving in the tens of thousands annually, even this week, isn’t legally kosher. That’s just hogwash."
Who Is Affected?
Temporary visa holders are the largest affected group, including:
- H‑1B (skilled workers)
- F‑1 (students)
- B‑1/B‑2 (tourists/business visitors)
- L‑1 (intra-company transferees)
Other immigrants included in the memo are those who have overstayed their visas, and those who have humanitarian parole.
The U.S. grants roughly 1 million green cards per year, but a significant portion goes to those with family-based applications, meaning they would not be affected by the memo.
What Happens Next
The memo is already in effect, with USCIS officers expected to apply the guidance on all relevant applications moving forward.
"Right now, it’s hard to estimate the impact of this policy, because it largely depends on how USCIS officers will apply it," Taub said. "I expect we’ll see a surge in requests for evidence asking for proof that applicants qualify, and I suspect will see more denials."
Attorneys have also pointed out that the way in which USCIS issued the new rules, through a memo rather than rule making, leaves the change open to legal challenges.
It is likely that the Trump administration will continue its efforts to change the immigration system using memos like these, as well as executive orders, as Congress has not passed significant immigration reform since 1990, despite multiple attempts by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Klein said that the memo was "another reminder that Congress has failed to modernize the immigration system," adding that agencies had been forced to "rely on restrictive interpretations and discretionary policy shifts" to manage a situation where outdated policies no longer fit the modern era.
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