Trump to force foreigners seeking green cards to go home first

[WASHINGTON] Foreigners applying for permanent residency in the US will now have to go back to their home countries to seek green cards.

“From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a green card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” Zach Kahler, a spokesman for US Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS), said in a statement on Friday (May 22).

“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivising loopholes,” Kahler said.

The policy change could impact hundreds of thousands of people a year and potentially reduce legal immigration further amid a sweeping government crackdown, according to immigration-law experts.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has introduced a series of restrictions affecting everyone from asylum seekers to students and highly skilled workers.

The new rules generally apply to any foreigner who came to the US on a temporary non-immigrant visa, including students, employees on H-1B or L visas and visitors. The US awards about one million green cards a year, though roughly half of those are for foreign relatives being sponsored by an American citizen. Those applications are generally already processed outside of the US.

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In a memo outlining the change, USCIS employees who decide applications for permanent residency were told that some exceptions could be made.

The memo directed them to “consider and weigh all the relevant evidence in the record, taking into account the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the alien is suitable for permanent residence.” BLOOMBERG