{"id":349674,"date":"2026-06-06T16:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/349674\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:48:11","slug":"what-to-know-about-the-trump-administrations-new-green-card-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/349674\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about the Trump administration’s new green card policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story<\/a> was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

If the goal was to confuse everyone, the mission was accomplished.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just before Memorial Day, the Trump administration issued a sweeping new policy directive<\/a> that took aim at legal immigration. It would have required most temporary visa holders and humanitarian parolees living in the U.S. to return to their home countries to await their green cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The memo and accompanying news release<\/a> bucked a longstanding policy of allowing immigrants to remain in the U.S. while waiting for green cards, stating individuals would have to go back to their home countries except in \u201cextraordinary\u201d cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, late last Friday, the Trump administration began downplaying the significance<\/a> of the previous week\u2019s orders, which had already caused panic, confusion and concern among immigrant families and attorneys.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security told the New York Times that it wasn\u2019t a blanket policy and that individual officers in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services<\/a> have always had the discretion to decide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a CYA,\u201d said Patrick Kolasinski, an immigration attorney based in Modesto. \u201cTo me, it seems really clear that what they\u2019re doing in their covering-their-bases thing is \u2026 a little bit of public blowback, but also trying to avoid some litigation because trying to change this policy the way they did is completely illegal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

An unnamed Department Homeland Security spokesperson also told the Times that the groups that could be heavily affected include people who overstay visas or come from countries whose citizens are heavy users of public assistance.<\/p>\n

The department did not respond to a CalMatters question about the apparent reverse course of the newly announced policy, as reported by the New York Times<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many questions remain unanswered about the new policy and how it will be applied, but legal experts say it is part of an ongoing pattern by the Trump administration targeting people trying to follow established guidelines for obtaining a legal status. Employers, especially those in the tech sector<\/a>, have loudly balked at the new memo, saying the mandate could disrupt operations and cause talent to leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new mandate will almost certainly end up in court, but where does that leave people now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are a few things to know:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who is affected by new green card rules?<\/p>\n

Relatives of U.S. citizens, laid-off tech workers, mixed-status families and international students are among those most at risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The change would mostly affect people already inside the United States who are applying for permanent residency, a process called adjustment of status. Roughly half of all green cards issued each year go to people already living inside the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2023, 112,100 Californians received green cards through adjustment of status. That\u2019s more than any other state, accounting for nearly one in five of all U.S adjustments in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Family-based applicants make up the largest share, as opposed to employment-based applications. About 64% of all new green card recipients in 2023 obtained status through a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, according to DHS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear if the policy would apply to people with pending adjustment applications. Lynn Damiano Pearson, the director of legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, said immigration attorneys are already seeing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers question applicants in ways that suggest the answer is yes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some immigration lawyers told CalMatters people were asked by officers in interviews last week\u00a0 why they were applying for green cards from within the United States, and if any factors would keep them from applying and waiting in their home countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are being questioned about consular processing in a way that seems to flow directly from this new memo and makes us assume, unfortunately, that this administration is planning to apply the policy retroactively,\u201d Damiano Pearson told CalMatters last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a question from CalMatters about whether the policy change applies to people with applications already in the pipeline Instead, in a written statement, the department said the policy \u201cwill have no noticeable impact on highly qualified applicants and skilled professionals who have followed the law.\u201d The spokesperson declined to provide their name.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Congress created adjustment of status<\/p>\n

Congress created adjustment of status<\/a> in 1952, and it has been used by administrations of both political parties for more than 70 years. More than half a million people use it each year. The new memo reframes that process as \u201cextraordinary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis memo is wrong. It\u2019s reprehensible. It\u2019s illegal,\u201d said Jeff Joseph, the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He said he is \u201c100% sure that it\u2019s going to be litigated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nina Sheridan, a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, indicated the same. \u201cThe Trump administration continues to wage a campaign against legal immigration, putting up barriers and pushing out immigrants who are trying to follow the established process to obtain permanent residence,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re monitoring where the administration goes next with its latest attempt to flout longstanding law and policy, and we are evaluating our options.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security told CalMatters the memo \u201crestates longstanding law and policy\u201d that was \u201cdisregarded by the Biden Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigrants fear a deportation trap<\/p>\n

Many people who applied for green cards have, with the government\u2019s blessing, allowed their original visa to expire while they wait for their interview, sometimes for years because of backlogs in processing. Under the new policy memo, attorneys worry that could be used against them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawyers are concerned people could be denied at their interview and then immediately placed into removal proceedings. Last year, people were taken into custody at their routine immigration appointments and then detained, sometimes for months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Damiano Pearson said it is too early to say how often that could happen, but she said experts could not rule out the possibility that ICE agents might take people into custody immediately following their citizenship interviews.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many applicants can\u2019t go back home<\/p>\n

For most applicants, consular processing would not be a quick plane ride home to sign some paperwork. Wait times and backlogs for Department of State processing can take years to resolve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about buying a plane ticket and waiting a little bit longer,\u201d said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. \u201cFor many people, consulate processing is not realistic or safe, and for others it can mean months or years of separation from U.S. citizen spouses, children, employers, and communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Visa processing has been halted completely in more than 70 countries<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Immigrants who have overstayed their visas could face three to 10-year reentry bans if they are forced to leave and apply from abroad.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know from the language of the memo if those issues will be taken into account,\u201d Damiano Pearson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis memo has obviously created a lot of panic and fear amongst people who thought they were well on their way to receiving a green card.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

What are attorneys telling their clients?<\/p>\n

Kolasinski, the immigration attorney, said he has clients with green card interviews this week who are nervous about what might happen next.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou walk in, and you have no idea what kind of officer you\u2019re going to get and what they\u2019re operating under,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no more rule of law. There is no more predictability. It\u2019s completely the Wild West, and that\u2019s been the case for a year and a half now,\u201d said Kolasinski.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His advice to clients with interviews scheduled: Don\u2019t go alone. \u201cNobody should be doing anything with immigration these days without a lawyer present,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CalMatters\u2019 journalism engineer Mohamed Al Elew contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CalMatters<\/a> is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. If the goal was to confuse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[143119,2872,14,74,76,75,1695],"class_list":["post-349674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-green-cards","tag-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}