I don’t see a carve out for spousal or family reunification applications.

Those weren’t services for the benefit of the immigrant. Those were a service to the US citizen who sponsored them and had to sign up to be on the hook to take care of their welfare.

The government was very clear to my spouse that she could divorce me the second her application was granted and I was still on the hook for any welfare she may end up needing.

This is just being anti immigrant. The same way they talk about illegal aliens and then you find out they really mean legal asylum seekers because they don’t like the process.

Or when they use the phrase Heritage Americans to discount recent immigrants.

Or when they just straight up say we have too much legal immigration.

The only surprising thing about this change in policy to me is that they are still keeping a veneer of not being racist on it, instead of just being as open as they have in other cases.