5 things you need to know about Trump’s new green card proposal

from Wendy FryCalMatters

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If the goal was to confuse everyone, mission accomplished.

Just before Memorial Day, the Trump administration issued a a comprehensive new policy directive which were aimed at legal immigration. This would require most temporary visa holders and humanitarian parolees living in the US to return to their home countries to wait for their green cards.

The note and accompanying news release opposed the longstanding policy of allowing immigrants to stay in the US while waiting for green cards, saying people would have to return to their home countries except in “extraordinary” cases.

Then, late last Friday, the Trump administration began downplaying the importance of the previous week’s orders, which had already caused panic, confusion and anxiety among the families and lawyers of the immigrants.

The Department of Homeland Security told the New York Times that this is not a general policy and that individual officials in the US Citizenship and Immigration Services they always had the discretion to decide.

“This is CYA,” said Patrick Kolasinski, an immigration attorney based in Modesto. “It seems really clear to me that what they’re doing with covering their bases is … a little bit of a public backlash, but they’re also trying to avoid some litigation because trying to change that policy the way they did is completely illegal.”

An unnamed spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security also told the Times that groups that could be hit hard include people who have overstayed visas or come from countries whose citizens often use public assistance.

The department did not respond to a CalMatters question about the apparent reversal of the newly announced policy, as reported by the New York Times.

Many questions remain unanswered about the new policy and how it will be implemented, but legal experts say it is part of an ongoing pattern by the Trump administration to target people trying to follow established guidelines to obtain legal status. employers, especially those in the technology sectorvociferously opposed the new memo, saying the mandate could disrupt operations and drive talent away.

The new term will almost certainly end up in court, but where does that leave people now?

Here are a few things you should know:

Who is affected by the new green card rules?

Relatives of American citizens, laid-off tech workers, mixed-status families and international students are among the most at risk.

The change will mostly affect people who are already in the United States and are applying for permanent residency, a process called adjustment of status. About half of all green cards issued each year go to people already living in the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2023, 112,100 Californians received green cards through adjustment of status. That’s more than any other state, accounting for nearly one in five of all corrections in the U.S. in 2023.

Family applicants make up the largest share, as opposed to work-based applicants. About 64 percent of all new green card recipients in 2023 obtained status through a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, according to DHS.

It is unclear whether the policy will apply to people with pending rectification applications. Lynn Damiano Pearson, director of legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, said immigration lawyers are already seeing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials questioning applicants in ways that suggest the answer is yes.

Some immigration attorneys told CalMatters that people were asked by officials in interviews last week why they were applying for green cards from the United States and whether any factors would prevent them from applying and waiting in their home countries.

“People are being questioned about consular processing in a way that seems to stem directly from this new memo and leads us to believe, unfortunately, that this administration plans to implement the policy retroactively,” Damiano Pearson told CalMatters last week.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a question from CalMatters about whether the policy change applies to people whose applications are already pending. Instead, in a written statement, the department said the policy “will have no discernible impact on highly qualified applicants and qualified professionals who have followed the law.” The spokesman declined to release their names.

Congress created an amendment to the statute

Congress created an amendment to the statute in 1952 and has been used by administrations of both political parties for more than 70 years. More than half a million people use it every year. The new memo reframes this process as “extraordinary.”

“This memo is wrong. It’s reprehensible. It’s illegal,” said Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He said he was “100% sure it will be litigated.”

Nina Sheridan, spokeswoman for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, made the same point. “The Trump administration continues to campaign against legal immigration by erecting barriers and pushing back immigrants who are trying to follow the established process to obtain permanent residency,” she said. “We’re watching where the administration is going with its latest attempt to ignore long-standing law and policy, and we’re evaluating our options.”

The Department of Homeland Security told CalMatters that the memo “recites long-standing law and policy” that has been “ignored by the Biden administration.”

Immigrants fear a deportation trap

Many people who have applied for green cards, with the government’s blessing, have allowed their initial visa to lapse while they wait for their interview, sometimes for years due to backlogs in processing. Under the new rules memo, lawyers are worried it could be used against them.

Advocates are concerned that people could be denied the interview and then immediately placed in removal proceedings. Last year, people were arrested at their routine immigration appointments and then detained, sometimes for months.

Damiano Pearson said it’s too early to say how often that might happen, but she said experts can’t rule out the possibility that ICE agents are detaining people right after their citizenship interviews.

Many applicants are unable to return home

For most applicants, consular processing would not be a quick plane ride home to sign some documents. The wait time and backlog of paperwork for the State Department to process can take years to resolve.

“This is not about buying a plane ticket and waiting a little longer,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “For many people, consular processing is not realistic or safe, and for others it can mean months or years of separation from spouses, children, employers and US citizen communities.”

Visa processing has been completely suspended in more than 70 countries.

Immigrants who have overstayed their visas can face re-entry bans of three to 10 years if they are forced to leave and apply from abroad.

“We don’t know from the language of the memo whether these issues will be taken into consideration,” Damiano Pearson said.

“This memo obviously created a lot of panic and fear among people who thought they were on the way to getting a green card.”

What do lawyers tell their clients?

Kolasinski, the immigration attorney, said he has clients with green card interviews this week who are nervous about what might happen next.

“You go in and you have no idea what kind of officer you’re going to get and what they’re working under,” he said.

“There’s no more rule of law. There’s no more predictability. It’s completely the Wild West, and it’s been that way for a year and a half,” Kolasinski said.

His advice to clients with interviews scheduled: Don’t go it alone. “No one should do anything with immigration these days without a lawyer present,” he said.

CalMatters Journalism Engineer Mohammed Al Elyu contributed to this report.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.