Trump's green card crackdown could force 1M 'aliens' out of the US — but 75 countries have no working consulate

USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler framed the change as a return to legislative intent.

"We're returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation's immigration system properly," he said in a statement. (2) "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."

The agency argued the policy will free USCIS resources to process other cases, including visas for victims of violent crime and human trafficking, and "help make our system fairer and more efficient." (2)

Ultimately, the memo doesn't change immigration law, but it changes the standard USCIS officers use to decide who gets a green card from inside the United States. For an estimated one million people with pending applications, that standard just got harder. (3)

"This admin continues to prove itself to be the most anti-legal immigration admin in U.S. history," David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, posted on X. "The harms this will cause to legal immigrants is incalculable. Impossible to explain how stupid and evil this policy is. It's intended to cost people their jobs and their families." (3)

What the memo actually does

Adjustment of status is the legal process that lets someone already in the U.S. on a visa — a student, a temporary worker, the spouse of an American citizen, a researcher on an O-1 — apply for a green card without leaving the country. It's filed as Form I-485, and according to Bier, it has been used "for over half of all legal immigrants in the last generation." (3)

The new USCIS memo reframes that process as "an extraordinary form of relief" rather than a routine benefit, and tells USCIS officers to weigh against every applicant the fact that they chose to apply from inside the U.S. instead of leaving and applying from a U.S. embassy abroad. (1) Applicants must now show "unusual or even outstanding equities" to be approved.

Meeting the eligibility requirements is no longer enough. Applicants have to convince an officer they deserve to stay, and the act of being in the U.S. when they applied is itself working against them. Officers have explicit political backing to deny otherwise-qualified applicants. (4)

Who's caught in the squeeze

The pool of affected applicants is enormous. USCIS data shows roughly 1.24 million I-485 applications pending as of the third quarter of fiscal 2025, the most recent period reported. (5) Bier's estimate of one million pending adjustment claims tracks closely with that figure. (3)

Michael Valverde, who served as a senior official at USCIS under both Republican and Democratic administrations until his departure last year, told CBS News the policy will "disrupt the plans of hundreds of thousands of families and employers annually." (6) He called it "a largely unprecedented move that will limit lawful immigration to the U.S. greatly. People who followed the rules faithfully now face tremendous uncertainty." (6)

Doug Rand, a former senior USCIS official under the Biden administration, told CBS News the change could make it "difficult or impossible for very large numbers of U.S. citizens to get on with their lives with the people they've chosen to marry who came here legally." (6)

The people in that queue include:

• H-1B and L-1 workers who the U.S. tech, finance and healthcare industries rely on for skilled talent. These are "dual intent" categories, which the memo acknowledges, but it then adds that dual intent "is not sufficient, on its own, to warrant a favorable exercise of discretion." (1) Holding the right visa gets you in the door, but no longer gets you the green card. FWD.us estimates 730,000 H-1B holders and 550,000 dependents are in the U.S., nearly 1.3 million people in total. (7)
• F-1 students transitioning to employer-sponsored permanent residence
• O-1 visa holders who fall under the "extraordinary ability" category used by researchers, doctors, professors, athletes and the founders of high-growth startups
• Tourist visa holders who marry U.S. citizens
• Spouses and immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who, historically, have the highest-approval group, with no explicit carve-out in the new memo
• Parolees, including people admitted under humanitarian programs for Ukrainians, Afghans, Cubans and Haitians

Kahler pointed to what the administration views as the structural problem: "Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process." (8)

Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, however, framed it as a self-inflicted economic wound: "Trump just made legal immigration harder — on purpose. America is able to attract the top researchers, doctors and engineers because of our worker visa programs." (8)

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, further highlighted the geopolitical irony calling the policy "stupid" and arguing that it "will help competitors such as China and Russia" by pushing skilled workers to countries with more welcoming immigration systems. (8)

The trap: 75 countries have no working U.S. consulate

The DHS’s "just go home and apply" assumes there is a home to go to where the U.S. government is open for business. For a large slice of the affected population, there isn't.

The State Department has halted immigrant visa processing in 75 different countries. (3) The U.S. has no operating embassy in Russia. Consular services are suspended or severely limited in Iran, Belarus, Venezuela and others. Ukrainians, Afghans, Cubans and Haitians who came to the U.S. under humanitarian parole are being told to return to countries where the U.S. either doesn't have a functional diplomatic presence or has actively restricted entry.

Venture capitalist Nick Davidov flagged the gap on X.

"This is the worst imaginable way to disrupt important work for the country and pretend you're fighting some loophole," he wrote, noting at least three founders in his portfolio would be directly affected. "Russians don't have anywhere to go (there is no U.S. embassy in Russia, hello?)." In a follow-up reply, he added: "Iranians, Belorussians, Ukrainians can't really go back." (9)

Why the memo is legally vulnerable

Under existing immigration law, anyone who's been in the U.S. unlawfully for more than six months and then leaves the country triggers an automatic bar to reentry — three years for shorter overstays, 10 years for longer ones. For the spouse of a U.S. citizen who overstayed a visa even briefly, "go home and apply" can mean a decade locked out of the country and separated from their family.

A legal waiver exists for exactly this scenario, but it's already a complex process that requires applicants to prove "extreme hardship" to a U.S. citizen family member. Immigration attorneys expect the system to be overwhelmed.

Multiple immigration law firms expect the memo to be challenged in court. The most likely argument: USCIS is using its discretion to deny what Congress explicitly authorized, and a policy change this significant should have gone through formal rulemaking, not an internal memo. (11)

There's already a working example of what that looks like. Cuban residency approvals through adjustment of status dropped 99.8% between October 2024 and January 2026, according to Cato Institute analysis (10). The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 remains on the books — only Congress can repeal it — but USCIS effectively halted approvals through administrative slowdown.

During the same period, ICE detentions of Cuban migrants rose 463%, and in March 2026 lawyers filed a federal class-action lawsuit against USCIS over delays in more than 100,000 pending Cuban cases. (10) The new memo extends that framework across every nationality and visa category.

The memo's own language gives challengers an opening. It states explicitly that it "may not be relied upon to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable under law or by any individual or other party." (1) A policy with no enforceable standards is harder to defend as the product of reasoned agency decision-making.

What's still unknown

Several questions remain. USCIS hasn't said whether pending I-485 applications filed before May 21 will be adjudicated under the old framework or the new one. The fate of work permits and travel documents tied to denied I-485s is also unclear. There's no effective date, and no list of which "extraordinary circumstances" will qualify for an exception.