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.
Read More: Legal Immigration Pathways Are Disappearing
“This Administration is trying to make it as difficult as possible for as many people as possible to attain permanent resident status,” he says.
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.
“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.”
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.
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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
Business and technology entrepreneurs have expressed concern that the new policy could disrupt their employees' lives and prevent them from recruiting new skilled workers.
“It will hurt families, leave us with fewer doctors, teachers and scientists, and hurt American competitiveness in AI,” he said.
“Obviously, many will give up, and the US will lose their talents permanently,” he wrote.
Kanstroom suspects that the Administration may be trying to reduce the number of noncitizens getting green cards through employment in order to free up more jobs for U.S. citizens.
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.
“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.
“If they leave, it may be decades before they can return,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
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
Bier, of the Cato Institute, argues that this policy “ignores the reality of life.”
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.
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