Most people applying for green cards from within the United States will be required to leave the country and apply through consulates abroad under sweeping changes announced by the Trump Administration this week.

The move will dramatically complicate the process for hundreds of thousands of people who seek permanent residency from within the U.S. each year, and has sparked a backlash from immigration advocates.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the new policy in a memo on May 21, stating that green cards would be issued within the U.S. only for “extraordinary circumstances” and instructing immigration officers to make case-by-case determinations. 

Daniel Kanstroom, a professor at Boston College Law School and founder of the university’s Immigration and Asylum Clinic, tells TIME that the main purpose of this memo is likely to reduce the number of green cards that are approved.

“This Administration is trying to make it as difficult as possible for as many people as possible to attain permanent resident status,” he says.

“We're focusing now on the group of people who potentially have the strongest reasons to stay in this country legitimately,” he says, referring to the spouses and family members of U.S. citizens or legal residents.

It is unclear how the agency will determine who can apply for a green card while in the country and who can apply while outside the country, but at its broadest, this policy could affect more than 500,000 people who apply for green cards each year while living in the U.S. on temporary visas. 

Usually, those seeking permanent residency in the U.S. can apply in two ways: for an immigrant visa at a U.S. consulate abroad or for a green card while already in the country, usually on a temporary visa. Those who apply from within the country have their immigration status changed to permanent resident status. Now, they could be forced to leave the country for months or even years while they wait for their applications to be processed, immigration experts said—even if they have jobs, families, and entire lives in the United States.

“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes,” Zach Kahler, a spokesman for USCIS, said in a statement. “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 U.S. illegally after being denied residency.”

While Kahler calls the move a loophole, Congress specifically allowed for adjustment of resident status in Section 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Several work visas—like the H-1B category— are also specifically designed for “dual intent,” meaning that workers can apply for a green card without jeopardizing their current status.

The changes will impact half of all green card applicants 

Out of the 783,000 people who received a green card from within the United States between October 2023 and September 2024, 53% were spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens and green card holders, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Twenty-eight percent were people who adjusted from refugee or asylee status, and 15% obtained a green card through employment. 

“HALF of all green cards go to people…here in the U.S. who applied for a green card through ‘adjustment of status,’”Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said on social media in reaction to the change. “This group covers everyone from spouses and children of US citizens to skilled professionals getting a green card through an employer.”

Reichlin-Melnick said the new policy could “force people to leave their jobs, homes, and families for weeks or months, all at their own expense,” worsen already backlogged green card applications, and place those looking for legal residence at the mercy of consulates, whose decisions are “virtually unchallengeable.” 

According to Kanstroom, this lack of recourse abroad means that, despite the memo, most lawyers will likely advise their clients to still apply for adjustment of status within the U.S. instead of leaving the country.

“What this Administration is saying is, ‘if you have any doubts, you should leave and take your chances at the consulate,’ but most lawyers are not going to advise clients to do that, because then a client could be stuck, and even in cases that are granted, you could be stuck for months or years,” he says. "In a marriage case, that could be quite a hardship.”

David Bier, director of immigration studies at libertarian think-tank Cato Institute, called the move an expansion of the Trump Administration’s “quiet quitting” on legal immigration, pointing to how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has slashed green card approvals in half over the last year, according to USCIS data. 

“This drop came primarily from not processing applications. Now USCIS’s new memorandum details a plan for mass denials,” he wrote in an analysis for Cato. “USCIS has gone from the ‘quiet-quit’ to walking out on 1.2 million green card applicants.”

Here is who the changes will impact the most.

What do the changes mean for skilled workers?

The memo instructs immigration officers to “consider all relevant factors and information on a case-by-case basis” when determining which applicants warrant the “extraordinary form of relief” of applying in-country. 
But skilled workers in the U.S. on employment-based visas, seeking permanent residency, could be particularly affected.

Many highly skilled workers apply for a green card after obtaining an H-1B visa.  

Business and technology entrepreneurs have expressed concern that the new policy could disrupt their employees' lives and prevent them from recruiting new skilled workers. 

Andrew Ng, co-founder of Coursera, called the new policy “a capricious attack on legal immigration” on X. 

“It will hurt families, leave us with fewer doctors, teachers and scientists, and hurt American competitiveness in AI,” he said.

Michael Clemens, an economist and professor at Johns Hopkins University, said on social media:  “For high-skill Indian workers seeking EB-2/3 visas, a major source of STEM talent and innovation in the US workforce, that will usually mean *years* of waiting overseas for consular processing.”

“Obviously, many will give up, and the US will lose their talents permanently,” he wrote. 

After initial backlash over the policy, USCIS spokesman Kahler released a new statement saying that “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 individualized circumstances.” 

Kanstroom suspects that the Administration may be trying to reduce the number of noncitizens obtaining green cards through employment to free up more jobs for U.S. citizens.  

“But this is a very oblique way of trying to do a thing like that,” he adds.

How will spousal and family visas be impacted?  

Adjustment of status is the most common pathway to a green card for spouses and family members of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents already residing in the U.S., including those with the K-1 visa, which is designed for fiancés and fiancées of U.S. citizens coming to the U.S. to get married.

World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization that provides immigration legal services within the U.S., said that the policy was “anti-family” and will “force apart husbands from wives and children from their parents” for a potentially months to years-long process of waiting for consulate services abroad.

“There’s simply no compelling reason for this cruel, anti-family policy change, and I hope and pray it will be reversed, whether by administrative reconsideration, congressional action or the courts,” Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief, said in a statement.

Families hailing from countries previously on the Trump Administration’s travel ban will also likely have an even more difficult time returning to the U.S. in practice.

“If they leave, it may be decades before they can return,” Reichlin-Melnick said.

This is especially true for citizens of the 39 countries currently facing bans or restrictions on entering the U.S. under the Trump Administration’s “travel ban” expanded in December 2025, which Trump announced would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries.”

The USCIS had already said it would review the immigration statuses of lawful permanent residents and green card holders already in the U.S. from the 19 countries that were restricted in June 2025, most of which lie in Africa and Asia. The State Department also severely curtailed visa processing, halting the processing of immigrant visa applications for people from 75 countries in January.

Students may also be affected

The USCIS announcement said that non-immigrant residents, like students, come to the U.S. for a specific purpose and must leave shortly after.
Bier, of the Cato Institute, argues that this policy “ignores the reality of life.”

“People come as students, and then they get a permanent job offer. People come to visit friends, and then they get a marriage proposal,” he wrote. “People come for whatever reason, and their country is taken over by someone who will persecute them.”

People, such as students who arrived on visas and “overstayed”, will be among those most affected by this new policy, Kanstroom says.
This is because in most cases, people like students who overstayed their visas and have lived in the U.S. illegally for some time would face multi-year-long bans from re-entering the country if they leave.