Donald Trump's administration has quietly imposed a sweeping new hurdle on legal immigration in the United States, ordering that most people seeking a green card while already in the country must now leave and apply from abroad, according to a six‑page memo issued by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on 21 May. The policy, which shifts how officers judge the most common route to permanent residence, could affect roughly a million people with pending applications.
Adjustment of status is the mechanism that has allowed students, skilled workers, spouses of US citizens and other temporary visa holders to become permanent residents without leaving American soil. It is filed on Form I‑485 and, as libertarian think tank the Cato Institute notes, has been the pathway 'for over half of all legal immigrants in the last generation.'
