Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says

This must be rolled back this is so hella disruptive. But it’s very much in line with this administration. One part stupid another part callous and 3 parts bad for the economy.

next headline: trump closes consulates in nonwhite countries

Another case of this administration just doing what it wants and ignoring legislation - ignoring the will of Congress. And Congress abdicating its responsibility to even make its will clear.

I am no longer surprised, but still don’t understand why almost all members of Congress are wiling to just let their power slip away like this.

Is there now a path to retain a fresh PhD / postDoc in the US?

If all of these folks are pushed out of the country right after their student visa expires, likely they are not coming back.

It's just sparkling xenophobia. Forcing a return to one's home country to apply for a Green Card can frequently remove the very qualifiers one has to getting said Green Card.

Just take a look at the categories of Green Cards available on USCIS' website[0], and think about how many of them will be unavailable if you're back in your home country.

* Green Card via Family? 18 months, minimum, for approval.

* Green Card via Employment? Well, self-deporting likely means the loss of said job opportunity, thus your ability to convert to LPR status

* via Special Worker? Here's hoping you're not an Iraq of Afghani national that might be persecuted back in said home country for cooperating with the US Government.

* via Refugee or Asylee Status, or as Victims of Abuse? Are we fucking kidding, here? Forcing refugees/asylum seekers/abuse victims back to their home countries is deliberately cruel, and I'm going to be looking for statistics on changes in approvals pre- and post- this policy change to make sure "special circumstances" are actually recognized as such

It's just a despicably cruel policy change that's so overtly xenophobic, it actually reveals the alignment of those reporting on it when it's not called out as such. It's the antithesis to legal immigration in that it all but destroys the process entirely, promoting more illicit behavior (dangerous and clandestine border crossings, exploitation of migrant workers, human trafficking, etc) in the process.

Fuck this regime.

[0]: https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility-cate...

There really is no rhyme or reason to this insanity. Even someone who wants less immigration shouldn't be able to see this as anything other than insanity. The current administration is pathetic beyond belief.

I think it is hard for citizens to understand how precarious it feels to be an immigrant in the present political climate in the US and Europe. I'm a permanent resident in France, I'm white, I have a EU passport, I have a job, I'm OK. But, my naturalization request has already been denied twice, because I couldn't provide some arbitrary document the government demands, and they keep changing the rules, just for the fun of it or so it seems, it's quite insulting.

I really feel for immigrants that are less fortunate than me. we all just want to have dignity, find a job (anyway the low-paying jobs are done by immigrants) and provide for our kids. What's wrong with that? How is this taking advantage of our host country?

Frankly, the present discourse around African/Arab immigration seems to me to resemble a lot the kind of rhetoric around the millions of Jewish Russian immigrants who fled pogroms to Poland and western Europe a 120 years ago. I find the similarities quite striking. The blatant racism, the conspiracy theories, the fascist propaganda, all in order to whitewash (pun intended) a corrupt regime of thieves and sycophants. Absolutely disgusting!

What about a spouse visa? It's insane. I just got married to my girlfriend, and she needs to go back to her home country and wait for years before getting a green card? It's crazy.

This does not seem to target NIWs but rather those who use change of status as a way of extending their stay.

Change of status was never meant for those without status in the first place or for tourists.

I would love be to hear an immigration lawyer's perspective on this.

Here's the memo directly:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

This is such an insanely unpopular move even among some of trump’s supporters. I really think this will be this version of the republican party’s suicide note.

Not to speak on the anguish that this would undoubtedly cause but economically? This is like shooting yourself in the kneecap. America doesn’t nearly have the social security net of European countries and ours is already overburdened. Without younger, immigrant workers paying into our social security net the US govt will either need to print money (double digit inflation) or start raiding the evil tech bros RSUs for Medicare money.

Being a natvist is an expensive proposition. Expect your retirement to decrease in real value and struggle to find acceptable healthcare as you age (healthcare in the US is increasingly staffed by immigrants, especially nursing).

Is America an economic zone for people (who might be highly educated) to just come and make money, or is it a place for them to call home and be American?

I'll be honest as a naturalized citizen, I am shocked at how many people treat America as just a economic zone. They don't really consider this country to be their roots and don't assimilate into the broader culture. And I'm not talking about H1b, I'm talking about the O1s and L1s. They are so entitled and they are usually super well off in whatever country they come from.

It doesn't matter if they're a PhD or whatever, they might contribute via their employer or their own startup on a monetary basis, but I have also dealt with enough people who try to maintain one foot here and another foot wherever they're from.

We moved to the USA because the system of governance here and all the things it stood for were what motivated us to become Americans. It is our home and we have only our American passport.

Most of the so-called "highly educated" immigrant workers I meet have a spouse who won't become a US citizen so they can double dip in their origin country's low cost of living. It is kind of gross.

Just food for thought. I don't really like people who only seek to extract, if that makes sense. Doesn't matter if your TC is 1.2M or you raised 40M.

So if someone is here in the US on an H1B and they want to become a permanent Resident/ Green Card holder, they will have to go back to their country of origin to apply? Otherwise they just stay on their H1B VISA and work.

Is that right?

This is confusing. If someone is already here on a valid visa, it's stupid that they should have to go anywhere else.

If they simply showed up or overstayed a visa illegally, then it's actually totally reasonable that before they can be given permanent resident status, they should be demonstrating compliance with immigration laws by not being here illegally.

Yet again with Trump's bizarre mixture of a nugget of a reasonable (and popular) idea with a barrel of nonsense and chaos. It's the same as with tariffs. Tariff things produced by adversaries, that we are well-positioned to make here ourselves and stimulate a good domestic industry with good-paying jobs? Yeah, but also let's tariff a ton of things we need that we don't even freaking make or grow here, and against our geopolitical allies to boot.

I don’t see this as that significant of a change.

The way I read the new policy is that it will be applied to people who have violated immigration law in some way.

An alien’s failure to comply with the conditions of their nonimmigrant admission or parole and an alien’s failure to depart as expected are highly relevant to this analysis

And those on dual-intent visa are fine…

USCIS reminds its officers that applying for adjustment of status is not inconsistent with simultaneously maintaining nonimmigrant status in a category with dual intent.

It’s basically adhering to the laws on the books. If you’ve violated immigration law a high hurdle will be in place to use this special pathway.

However, if you’re in the US on a dual-intent visa (e.g. H1-B) then you can continue to use the AOS pathway. This includes temporary works on L or H visas. And includes those sponsoring their spouses on K visas.

You can apply for GC from within the US. The only time you need to leave for Consular Processing is for the interview, after which you immediately receive your GC. Everyone is saying that the entire GC process needs to be done outside the US but that's wrong. You can have an H1B and apply for GC from within the US without leaving and you only need to leave for the CP interview which is a couple of days max.

I was under the impression that this is roughly how it works (assume equivalency) in most European countries is it not?

Step 324 of how to make Russia great again.

Another immigration policy that would have negatively effected Trump's own wife. Oh well, she got hers.

This could be a big deal for Big Tech. I wonder how personal experience of Musk and Huang will play into how they react.

So what does this do to the K-1 fiancée visa? Your partner gets the visa, they come over, you get married, and then they have to leave and submit an application to get status changed from their origin country? Seriously? WTF is this crap?

Again worth asking VC Bros if the light touch on their crypto bags was worth all this ethnonationalism?

Trump is still trying to distract from the magnitude of the Epstein network.

Not long ago, new accusations came about, involving more superrich - see here https://wsvn.com/news/us-world/former-miami-beach-mayor-accu... and elsewhere, really just a few hours ago; and from the last few days. So here I am wondering ... how can there be an investigation in the USA, but even many weeks afterwards, they keep on finding more and more people that MAY have been involved here? Of course it is guilty-unless-proven-otherwise-in-court, but the key question here is why the investigation "reveals" more and more victims? Should this not already be revealed? Or is the investigation deliberately crippled?

Something no longer works in the USA here. The "we are against immigration" is just the carrot on the stick before the donkey. Or the "let's bomb Iran ... oh wait, inflation now goes up". This is literally an administration that worships chaos and executes pillaging while implementing chaos.

I will say, there are a non-zero number of people who were rooting for Trump and the American right wing in general who are now surprised the fascists are turning on them. I don't know, it's hard to have sympathy for some of you.

Did you really think the whites saw you as one of them? Were you so naive? Because you were "educated"? Because you worked in Silicon Valley or SF (you know California, the same places that Trump ranted against for years because they never voted for him)?

Don't worry, the are letting in white South Africans

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/us/politics/trump-afrikan...

the wildly corrupt double-standard is breathtaking

There is well documented historical evidence Elon Musk not only illegally overstayed a student visa, he also illegally worked while on that visa AND did illegal drugs publicly while on that visa

Destroyed USAID murdering millions, highlights the President is in the Epstein Files extensively, then six months later is flying on Air Force One, it's all a cruel joke against humanity

So the racists in the Trump administration - my guess is Stephen Miller types - are literally making it so that LEGAL immigrants have to spend thousands of dollars and time to go submit a form in another country, when they can do it here? Or online? Why?

The cruelty is the point. They want the economic benefit of immigrants but also want them to live in uncertainty and without any easy path to settling down. Complete and utterly stupid.

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TBH I think that is fair.

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America belongs to whites only..

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Well, I for one hope we can send all the foreigners home.