The new rule by US President Donald Trump, which requires applicants to green card to return to their countries while they wait for an immigration decision represents a new blow to legal migration and It can affect more than half a million people a year, specialists warn.
The rule, implemented last week, will prevent migrants who are already in the country from adjusting their immigration status (adjustment of status) in the United States, so they will have to return to their nations of origin to request the call green card resident in the consulates.
The measure, which breaks with a practice approved by Congress since 1952, “will have a very negative impact on the lives of truly millions of people“said Daniel Costa, director of research on immigration law and policy at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
“It’s going to complicate the lives of many people because they’re going to have to leave their jobs. If they can’t work remotely in another country, they are going to lose their job, probably.
After losing money, they may be separated from families for at least months and, in many cases, maybe the majority, for years,” he commented.
How many affected?
Although there is no precise number of people affected by the measure, the EPI researcher pointed out that more than half of the million people who each year gets a green card it does so through adjustment of status within the United States.
58% of the more than 1.35 million migrants who obtained legal residency in the United States in fiscal year 2024, That is, 782,770 people did so, according to the latest official figures available from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The greatest impact will be for migrants with family in the United States, warns the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), since half of the new residents legal are immediate relatives of citizens within the US.
The policy will also affect immigrants with jobs in the United States, religious workers, beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or parole (humanitarian leave) and people who have lived in the country for a long time, explained Benjamin Johnson, executive director of AILA, in a virtual chat with journalists.
Additionally, the memorandum issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is “very vague”, as it does not clarify all the types of migrants affected or the exceptionsso it is not possible to know exactly, said Shev Dalal-Dheini, director of government relations at AILA.
Although the Government has said that this only requires migrants to return home and apply for a visa, Johnson crosses out this “dangerous misinformation”.
“This is not about buying a plane ticket and waiting a little longer. For many people, consular processing is not realistic or safe and, for others, it can mean months or years of separation from spouses who They are US citizens, children, employers and communities,” he considered.
A fight against legal immigration
The measures reflect that the Trump Administration is not “only attacking illegal migration,” according to Costa, who believes that “It is very clear that they want to reduce legal immigration and are taking measures to do so”.
As an example, he cites the brake on asylum on the border with Mexico, the elimination of TPS benefits, the pause on refugees except for white immigrants from South Africa and the suspension of immigrant visa processing for 75 countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua and Uruguay.
This will affect the economy, since before Trump’s arrival almost one in five workers in the United States was an immigrant, cited the EPI expert, who estimates that the country would lose 6 million jobs, 40% of them for Americans, if the president meets his goal of carrying out four million deportations.
“This is going to have a lot of negative economic impact for the entire country and, combined with the impacts we are seeing from the Iran war, This is another very problematic thing for the economy,” Costa said.
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