The White House has moved to force most green card applicants out of the country to apply from abroad, but officials acknowledge the policy may not be applied uniformly, leaving immigration lawyers and hundreds of thousands of applicants in a state of uncertainty.
The Trump administration announced on Friday a sweeping change to one of the most widely used pathways to permanent residency in the United States, declaring that most immigrants already living in the country will now be required to leave and apply for green cards from abroad.
However, officials have already signalled that the policy may not be applied equally to all applicants, with those deemed to provide an economic benefit to the country likely to be permitted to continue on their existing path, according to Business Insider report.
What Trump’s New Green Card Policy Actually Says
US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that administers the legal immigration system, said it would henceforth grant “adjustment of status” — the domestic process that allows immigrants already present in the US to apply for lawful permanent residency without leaving the country — “only in extraordinary circumstances.”
All other will be directed towards consular processing through the State Department at American embassies and consulates overseas, with exceptions evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
The announcement was accompanied by a six-page memo that left considerable ambiguity about which categories of applicants would qualify for exemptions, prompting immediate confusion among immigration attorneys and their clients.
Who May Be Exempt: The ‘Economic Benefit’ Carve-Out
Despite the sweeping language of the announcement, a spokesperson for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Zach Kahler, indicated to Business Insider that the new rule would not be uniformly enforced from the outset.
“While we work to operationalise this, people who present applications that provide an economic benefit or otherwise are in the national interest will likely be able to continue on their current path while others may be asked to apply abroad depending on individualised circumstances,” Kahler said, framing the policy shift as a return to the “intent of Congress.”
Kahler elaborated further in a separate statement: “This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivising loopholes. 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 US illegally after being denied residency.”
It remains unclear precisely which categories of foreign workers would qualify under the economic benefit exemption, including whether skilled workers on H-1B visas would be eligible. The agency indicated that refugees would not be subject to the new policy but offered no further detail on which groups would receive exceptions.
How Many People Does This Green Card Rule Affect
The scale of the potential disruption is considerable. According to data from the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 1.4 million green cards were granted in 2024 alone, of which more than 820,000 were approved for people inside the country through adjustment of status.
Over the past two decades, more than 500,000 people per year have received green cards through this same domestic process, with the sole exception of 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than 70 per cent of people who received a green card through marriage in 2024 did so through adjustment of status, representing roughly 250,000 individuals in that year alone.
Who Is Most Vulnerable Under the New Green Card Rules
The change stands to affect a broad range of people who entered the country lawfully on temporary visas and are in the process of seeking permanent residency, including students, spouses of and a wide range of foreign workers. The green card process already takes months, and in many cases considerably longer, meaning that forcing applicants to leave the country for consular processing could result in prolonged family separation and significant barriers to re-entry, particularly for those whose temporary visas have expired whilst they await a decision.
Sarah Pierce, a former policy analyst at and now director of social policy at the think tank Third Way, warned that the infrastructure to handle such a volume of overseas applications simply does not exist.
“Our consular processing system through which they would have to apply is already overburdened,” Pierce said. “So that means we could have families separated for months or years.”
US Immigration Lawyers Scramble to Advise Clients
The announcement sent immediate shockwaves through the immigration legal community, with attorneys reporting a flood of calls and messages from anxious clients seeking clarity on how the new policy would affect their cases.
Robert O’Malley, an immigration attorney in Grand Rapids, Michigan, told New York Times that his clients were asking urgent questions about whether their spouses would need to leave the country.
“I’ve done my best to assuage those fears,” O’Malley said. “But I’m really just trying to digest this six-page memo and wait for further guidance so that we know how to best advise our clients.”
Many attorneys also said they expected the policy to face legal challenges in the courts.
The Broader Context: Trump’s Legal Immigration Crackdown
The new restriction represents a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail legal immigration, a campaign that has until now focused primarily on those living in the country without authorisation. In recent months, federal officials have sought to strip some naturalised citizens of their status and have subjected thousands of green card holders to renewed scrutiny in an effort to identify immigrants they believe should be removed from the country.
The administration has also moved to revoke visas and has intensified pressure on temporary visa holders, broadening the scope of an immigration enforcement agenda that shows little sign of abating.
