Trump administration softens green card policy amid confusion and anxiety

The Trump administration’s latest green card move landed as a warning shot, then quickly softened into a claim that little had changed. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199 on May 21 and publicly announced it on May 22, framing adjustment of status as a matter of discretion and administrative grace and saying it should not replace consular processing abroad. After the backlash, the Department of Homeland Security said on May 30 that most green card applicants would not be required to leave the United States while their cases are pending.

The gap between those messages has fueled the confusion. For more than half a century, many people with legal status, including spouses of U.S. citizens, work-visa holders, student-visa holders, refugees and asylum-seekers, have been able to complete permanent-residence processing inside the country. USCIS’s policy manual still says Section 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows certain foreign nationals physically present in the United States to adjust status, and Congress created Section 245(i) in 1994 as a temporary backstop for some otherwise ineligible applicants before extending it repeatedly.

That is why lawyers and employers reacted as if a major shift had arrived. The AP said attorney Flavia Santos Lloyd’s phone began ringing with worried clients and that the confusing rollout was slowing applications. News coverage also said the change could touch hundreds of thousands of applicants a year, especially people in temporary categories such as F-1 student visas, B-1/B-2 visitors and temporary work permits, along with employers trying to keep workers in place while cases move through the system.

DHS’s later explanation narrowed the blast radius but left the most important question unresolved: who, exactly, qualifies for an exception. The department said the policy would be handled case by case and that highly qualified and skilled applicants would see no noticeable impact, but it did not spell out the full set of exemptions or how officers would apply them in practice. That leaves the administration trying to present the memo as a technical correction even as immigrants, employers and lawyers are forced to plan for longer waits, tougher scrutiny and the possibility that some applicants will still have to pursue their cases from consulates abroad.