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The Trump administration announced Friday that people seeking green cards will now be required to leave the United States and apply for permanent residency from their home countries. For more than 50 years, foreign nationals with legal status could complete that entire process without ever leaving American soil. Under the new rule from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that option is largely gone.
For decades, people on work visas, student visas, and even refugees and asylum seekers could complete that process from inside the country without interruption. The new rule closes that path for most applicants. About 600,000 people already in the U.S. apply for green cards each year, according to Doug Rand, a former senior USCIS advisor during the Biden administration, who spoke to NPR.
USCIS said it would grant adjustment of status only in “extraordinary circumstances,” on a case-by-case basis, and that people providing an “economic benefit” or serving a “national interest” could potentially qualify for an exemption. Everyone else would apply through consular processing at a U.S. embassy abroad.
The Administration Says the Policy Fixes a Long-Standing Loophole
USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler described the shift as a return to how the immigration system was originally designed to work. He said temporary visa holders, including students, tourists, and workers, were always meant to leave the country when their authorized stay ended, and that their presence in the U.S. should never have served as the starting point for a green card application. The agency framed applying from abroad as the legally intended path.
Kahler also argued that the change would free up USCIS resources currently stretched thin by adjustment of status cases. With more applicants processed through State Department consular offices overseas, he said the agency could better focus on other priorities, including visa applications for crime and trafficking victims and naturalization cases. Officials maintained the policy would make the system “fairer and more efficient,” according to the statement.
The announcement also points to a longer-standing tension in how immigration law has been applied. Temporary visa holders, the administration argues, were never meant to use their time in the U.S. as an informal runway toward permanent residency, and routing applicants abroad would reduce the need to track down people who stay after a denial since they would already be outside the country.
Critics Point to Practical and Humanitarian Concerns With the Change
Immigration attorneys and advocacy organizations pushed back quickly, raising concerns about what the change would mean for people already woven into American life. Some applicants are married to U.S. citizens or have U.S.-born children. Others have worked here for years in medicine, research, and other fields. Leaving to apply abroad, for a process that can stretch a year or more, means time away from jobs, families, and communities.
Some countries add another layer of difficulty. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan has been closed since the American withdrawal in August 2021, leaving Afghan nationals with no clear place to apply. And for people from countries already subject to travel bans or visa processing pauses, returning home could mean being unable to come back at all. World Relief, a humanitarian organization, warned that this creates a situation where families could face indefinite separation with no clear path forward.
Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told NPR the policy applies broadly to nearly anyone seeking a green card, and that consular wait times at some U.S. embassies already stretch beyond a year for a visa appointment. Staff attorney Jessie De Haven of the California Immigration Project said the uncertainty alone may have a chilling effect on people who might otherwise apply.
Attorneys and Advocates Are Still Sorting Out What the Rule Actually Means
Lawmakers and legal experts were quick to weigh in. Several Democratic members of Congress criticized the rule on social media, and David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, called it “illogical,” writing that it risks pushing skilled workers to other countries and making the U.S. less competitive for business. About 1.4 million people obtained lawful permanent residence in fiscal year 2024, according to Department of Homeland Security data.
USCIS did not say when the change would take effect, whether applicants would need to stay abroad throughout the entire process, or how it applies to people with applications already underway. Attorneys and advocacy groups were still working to determine what options their clients have, what exemptions might apply, and whether anyone currently mid-process would be grandfathered in under the old rules.
Legal challenges are widely expected, with attorneys arguing that adjustment of status has been accepted practice for decades and that the administration’s use of a policy memo rather than formal rulemaking could face scrutiny in court. The rule is the latest in a series of steps the administration has taken to tighten both legal and illegal immigration over the past year.