President Donald Trump’s deputies are closing the hidden process used by former presidents to covertly legalize or amnesty millions of economic migrants during the last few decades.
“This could be a HUGE move,” said a tweet from the Immigration Accountability Project Action group,
On Friday, officials announced that migrants in the United States who want to use the little-recognized and fast-track “Adjustment of Status” (AOS) pathway to green cards — and then citizenship — must instead follow the normal legalization pathway that goes through the U.S. embassies in their home countries.
This change will impact millions of economic migrants in the United States — including long-resident illegal migrants, temporary foreign workers, tourists, students, people with parole visas, Biden-era illegals with Temporary Protective Status, people who overstay their visas, and even people who have been given a final order of deportation. It does not impact refugees, asylum seekers, or migrants living overseas.
In recent years, roughly half of all legalized migrants have gotten their legal status — often with amnesty — via the AOS process instead of exiting the country to apply at the U.S. embassy in their home country.
“We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly,” said Zach Kahler, a spokesman for Joseph Edlow’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, which is part of Markwayne Mullin’s Department of Homeland Security. Kahler added:
From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances. This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes.
“That is a big deal, it’s a positive,” said Kevin Lynn, founder of the U.S. Tech Workers group, which campaigns against the H-1B and other white-collar migration programs.
“People do not understand how much of a scam the immigration program has become, and Adjustment of Status is one of the clearest examples,” Jared Culver, an analyst with Immigration Accountability Project Action told Breitbart News.
For example, the change would make it difficult for the many low-wage employers who now import their workers by dangling the promise of future legalization in exchange for years of work, said Culver. “It’s like when you’re playing Jenga — if you pull this one out, the whole business model is coming down,” he said.
The process will also block many illegal migrants from the bureaucratic amnesty process because embassy reviewers have tighter approval rules that cannot be overruled by pro-migration judges, he said.
The many gains for ordinary Americans were described by business-backed critics of the new policy.
“This admin continues to prove itself to be the most anti-legal immigration admin in US history,” lamented David Bier, one of the pro-migration advocates at the business-backed Cato Foundation. He said 1.2 million migrants are now trying to use the AOS pathway, and added:
[U.S. CIS director Joe Edlow] now demands every green card applicant self-deport, so that 1) applicants have to go through a process where courts are barred from nearly any review of consular decisions; and 2) overstays get 10-year barred [from green cards].
He claims that adjustment of status, which is used for over half of all legal immigrants in the last generation, is actually an EXTRAORDINARY process. This will be massively disruptive to businesses and families who have to separate to apply at home.
There was, of course, zero prep work to set up for the 1 million pending applicants to make this insanely arbitrary and pointless policy work. The law does not require this outcome in the slightest. Congress has explicitly envisioned adjustments happening in the USA for decades.
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 [migrants] their jobs and their families.
Bier continued:
After slow-quitting on his job for months, USCIS Joe just flat-out quits on legal immigration. He only cares about deportations and helping ICE arrest [migrants]. If adjustment of status ceases to exist, that clears away a big obstacle to arresting [migrants]
Also, this allows for the admin to apply the State Dept’s visa and entry bans to 50+ more [additional] countries, which will effectively double the number of immigrants banned by this useless administration. Constitutes theft of probably $1 billion more in fees
“How can Congress not impeach @USCISJoe?” Bier complained.
In advance of the expected lawsuits, Edlow’s office released a document explaining the changes: “A grant of adjustment of status under section 245(a) of the INA [law] is discretionary. An alien bears the burden of showing why administrative discretion should be favorably exercised.”
“Congress should eliminate adjustment of status altogether by passing @RepEliCrane’s End H-1B Visa Abuse Act (HR 8443),” said the Immigration Accountability group. “But it’s good to see the Trump Admin going as far as it legally can to fix this problem.”
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