New Trump Policy Could Make Thousands Of Immigrants Vulnerable To Losing Their Jobs

[JD2 196]

2 hours ago, S2N said:

It’s essentially a policy that encourages people to go the consular route,

I don't think you understand who this affects.

[S2N 565]

38 minutes ago, JD2 said:

I don't think you understand who this affects.

It affects people in the U.S. who have EADs. That tends to be people in temporary protected status programs and a few other administrative grey areas. There’s others, but that’d be the largest class.

 

The administration has been clear on multiple occasions that it much prefers those people to leave and if they want to cone back, seek another status via the network of U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.

 

Its part of a larger trend of trying to discourage people from seeking immigration benefits from within the United States, and a shift to providing more resources to review cases that originate outside the U.S. You see it most clearly in the family visas, yes, but it’s also being seen in the refugee resettlement realignments, this announcement, and a few others.

[JD2 196]

On 11/3/2025 at 10:03 PM, S2N said:

It affects people in the U.S. who have EADs. That tends to be people in temporary protected status programs and a few other administrative grey areas. There’s others, but that’d be the largest class.

 

The administration has been clear on multiple occasions that it much prefers those people to leave and if they want to cone back, seek another status via the network of U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.

 

Its part of a larger trend of trying to discourage people from seeking immigration benefits from within the United States, and a shift to providing more resources to review cases that originate outside the U.S. You see it most clearly in the family visas, yes, but it’s also being seen in the refugee resettlement realignments, this announcement, and a few others.

In your first post you talked about "family based and other immigrant petitions."   Now, you're talking about TPS and "grey areas."   In any event, I don't see the connection between this policy and encouraging consular processing.  Some of the people this affects, such as the spouses of work visa holders, have already gone through consular processing.  It also affects asylum seekers and they have no consular processing route.  People on TPS have no consular processing route.  Who cares if it is legal for Trump to do?  It was also legal for Biden to parole in millions of people.  Doesn't make it good.  The question we should be asking is is it good policy?  What are the benefits?  I imagine renewals have very low denial rates so what is the point?  And how do these unexplained benefits outweigh the costs to employers and lost tax receipts (not to mention the costs to the workers themselves).

[S2N 565]

23 minutes ago, JD2 said:

In your first post you talked about "family based and other immigrant petitions."   Now, you're talking about TPS and "grey areas."   In any event, I don't see the connection between this policy and encouraging consular processing.  Some of the people this affects, such as the spouses of work visa holders, have already gone through consular processing.  It also affects asylum seekers and they have no consular processing route.  People on TPS have no consular processing route.  Who cares if it is legal for Trump to do?  It was also legal for Biden to parole in millions of people.  Doesn't make it good.  The question we should be asking is is it good policy?  What are the benefits?  I imagine renewals have very low denial rates so what is the point?  And how do these unexplained benefits outweigh the costs to employers and lost tax receipts (not to mention the costs to the workers themselves).

Yes, I didn’t say anything that contradicted myself in either post. The policy is designed to encourage people to leave and come back by another means, whether it be by family (most common), refugee petition outside the states, employer, or any of the legion of other visa classes we have.

And you were the one focusing on what presidents can and can’t legally do. I certainly don’t agree with the move. I never once said or even hinted at supporting it.

 

I’m just telling you what they’re trying to do — they want people in the various temporary statuses (TPS, DACA, etc.) to leave and come back via a consular route if one exists, rather than stay here and wait out any change in law or adjudicate any change of status. This is one of the many moves that’s been taken to push a consular-based immigration process over a stateside one.

 

[JD2 196]

2 minutes ago, S2N said:

The policy is designed to encourage people to leave and come back by another means, whether it be by family (most common), refugee petition outside the states, employer, or any of the legion of other visa classes we have.

I just don't see this.  I have not been able to find any announcement or news article explaining that this is their goal for this policy.  (or that they even have a goal for this policy).

 

5 minutes ago, S2N said:

And you were the one focusing on what presidents can and can’t legally do.

I was responding to the previous poster.

 

11 minutes ago, S2N said:

I’m just telling you what they’re trying to do

But the key issue with your theory is it also affects some people who have already done what you say they want them to do.  They could have exempted spouses of work visa holders.  They didn't.  My theory: they just don't like immigrants (both legal and "illegal") so they will do whatever they can get away with to make things harder for immigrants, no matter if it's good policy or not.

[S2N 565]

42 minutes ago, JD2 said:

I just don't see this.  I have not been able to find any announcement or news article explaining that this is their goal for this policy.  (or that they even have a goal for this policy).

 

I was responding to the previous poster.

 

But the key issue with your theory is it also affects some people who have already done what you say they want them to do.  They could have exempted spouses of work visa holders.  They didn't.  My theory: they just don't like immigrants (both legal and "illegal") so they will do whatever they can get away with to make things harder for immigrants, no matter if it's good policy or not.

There are a ton of EAD uses, but the ones that the administration is going to care about would be: C08, C10, C11, C14, C18, C19, and C33. They could exempt some of the codes, but from an administrative standpoint it’s easier just to do a blanket rule.

 

The administration has made it fairly clear it doesn’t see much difference between people here in what’d I’d call the grey area statuses — ones where someone asks for a temporary benefit that is not a change in overall immigration status but prevents unlawful presence from accruing — and those here out of status. Most of the people that would fall into the categories I mentioned above would fall into what they broadly (and incorrectly) paint as “illegal immigrants.”

 

And I think there’s pretty strong overall evidence they want people to leave on their own: the president has said on multiple occasions that people should “self-deport” so they can have a chance at coming back. You also have a lot of that type of rhetoric coming out of the surrogates. They’re not going to come out and say “we’re making this harder in hopes people leave and don’t continue seeking benefits within the U.S.” that’d get them sued.

 

From the State standpoint, they’ve also been providing more guidance to embassies and consulates on vetting, while speeding up embassy and consulate IV scheduling times — doesn’t mean an approval, but wait times to go from NVC to a consulate are down from 6 months ago.
 

The clear trend in everything is to push the responsibility for vetting immigrants to State, who are widely viewed as more competent than USCIS by pretty much everyone, so that the vetting can be done overseas rather than while the person is in the US.

 

The approach of doing vetting outside the US only works if the people leave. And of course they don’t like immigrants, but that also doesn’t mean they don’t have a strategy on this or that they’re not trying to build systems that furthers their goals. Stephen Miller is actively involved in regular calls with the State Department officials that lead visa processing in DC. Do we really think the man doesn’t have a coordinated approach to his plans between DHS and State?

Edited 14 hours ago by S2N

[Dashinka 26,252]

5 hours ago, JD2 said:

I was responding to the previous poster.

Which was a response to another comment inferring a President was usurping Congressional authority.  This of course is not true as the action appears to be within the law as currently written.  Congress of course can write new law, but we all know that will never happen.

 

Like @S2N, I am not in complete agreement of this change in policy, but it was probably necessary to take care of all the EADs that were handed out like Pez by the previous administration.