A new Trump administration policy announced on Friday, May 22, 2026, by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) upends the standard green card process: most immigrants already in the United States will now have to leave the country and apply for permanent residence at an American consulate in their home country. The agency said it will grant permanent residence to people inside the United States only in "extraordinary circumstances."

The change rests on a USCIS policy memo (PM-602-0199, dated May 21, 2026) covering adjustment of status and discretion. The memo states that allowing immigrants to remain in the country while their green card applications are processed "is a matter of discretion and administrative grace" — language that signals the end of routine in-country processing.

Who Is Affected

The scale is significant. In 2024, the United States issued 1.4 million green cards, and more than 800,000 of those recipients were already inside the country and had their status adjusted as part of the process. Immigration lawyers and advocacy organizations said over the weekend that the new rule will reduce green card applications.

Spouses of U.S. citizens face particular disruption, according to Charles Kuck, an immigration lawyer and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Such immigrants typically need to resolve their own immigration status before seeking a green card, and until now they have generally been able to sort out those issues while remaining in the United States.

"This is simply an attempt to slow immigration," Mr. Kuck said, "and make immigration so unpleasant that you go home."

What Changes in Practice

Previously, applying from the home country was the exception, reserved for extraordinary situations — for example, applicants who had been deported several times or who had a serious criminal history, said Efrén Olivares, vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center. Under the new policy, remaining in the United States during the process becomes the exception instead.

"It's going to upend people's lives in every sense of the word," Mr. Olivares said.

Processing timelines themselves vary by family relationship, and applicants sent abroad will now face those waits outside the United States, away from spouses and children who may be U.S. citizens. Mr. Olivares cited approximate wait periods of about one year for a spouse, upward of five years for siblings, and as long as a decade for parents of U.S. citizens.

Official Justification

Zach Kahler, a spokesman for USCIS, said on Friday that the policy removes a loophole under which immigrants "slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency."

Reaction on the Ground

Several immigrants, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said on Saturday that they were confused and worried about what the change means for their own applications or those of their partners.

One example: an Albanian woman who received a green card in 2022 through the diversity visa lottery called her fiancé, who lives in Italy, to work out what the policy means for them. Her fiancé is expected to arrive in the United States this year on a work visa. She said the couple is now hiring an immigration lawyer to figure out how to proceed.

Advocates warn the longer-term effects will be severe even if not immediately visible. Karla Ostolaza, managing director of the immigration practice at the Bronx Defenders, a public defense nonprofit, predicted that affected immigrants "will stay in the shadows, remain without status and vulnerable to exploitation, and fence off any better opportunities to obtain status, even if they're completely eligible."

What Applicants Should Know

USCIS has not yet published case-by-case guidance on what qualifies as "extraordinary circumstances." Applicants with pending or planned adjustment-of-status cases should consult the USCIS policy memo and official USCIS channels for updates, and qualified immigration attorneys can assess how the change applies to individual situations. This summary does not constitute legal advice.