The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Friday unveiled a sweeping immigration policy change that would require most temporary visa holders already living in the United States to leave the country and apply for permanent residency from abroad, marking one of the most significant restrictions on legal immigration under Donald Trump's current administration.
The directive affects a broad category of immigrants, including international students, temporary workers and humanitarian parolees who previously could seek lawful permanent residency while remaining inside the U.S. Immigration attorneys and advocacy groups warned the move could disrupt families, complicate corporate hiring and trigger immediate legal challenges.
"We're returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation's immigration system properly," USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement announcing the policy. "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."
The administration framed the change as an effort to restore what it described as the original purpose of non-immigrant visas. "Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process," Kahler said.
The policy memo instructs immigration officers to treat adjustment-of-status applications filed within the United States as an "extraordinary form of relief," sharply narrowing a pathway that has existed for decades.
According to former USCIS official Doug Rand, roughly one million people apply for green cards annually, with about half currently filing from inside the United States through status adjustment procedures. Rand argued the administration's move was intended to restrict immigration rather than streamline it.
"The purpose of this policy is exclusion," Rand said. "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."
Immigration lawyers said the new directive could affect hundreds of thousands of legal residents already living and working in the country.
Rosanna Berardi, an immigration attorney in New York, warned that the policy could place humanitarian parolees in particularly vulnerable situations. "Afghans who assisted U.S. forces, Ukrainians fleeing war, face a specific trap: The memo treats their choice to apply for a green card inside the U.S. as an adverse factor, because their admission was temporary," Berardi said. "Many have nowhere safe to return to."
