USCIS Policy Memorandum "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Will Grant ‘Adjustment of Status’ Only in Extraordinary Circumstances"

[S2N 721]

25 minutes ago, Bugs said:

I pretty much agree with you on this.

 

The BIA is just interpreting the law, so it technically it is the law that is still the authority here, but, granted, it is an interpretation, and they will interpret it the way they want to interpret it.  

 

Which is why these things ultimately have to go through the courts, who do actually have the final say on how the law gets interpreted (in some cases, that is, until it gets reinterpreted by the same court a.k.a. see Roe v Wade).

 

This is very similar to what he is trying to do with birthright citizenship.  Now a law is getting a reinterpretation that is different than how people interpreted it for decades, so it has to go through the courts again for the new final word on it.

 

Speaking of which, some are saying this is a reach around by the administration in anticipation on a negative ruling on the birthright citizenship, to achieve the same end of getting hoards of people out who were deemed legal.

 

And it’s classic M.O. for him.  Shouldn’t surprise anyone.  

BIA rulings are immigration law until overruled. Administrative tribunals have the authority to create law just as judicial tribunals do. Yes, they’re interpreting the statue, but USCIS doesn’t have an independent legal authority to interpret the statue in contradiction of BIA.

 

But BIA has been stacked with hardliners, so it’s not going to do anything on this issue currently, which is why you’re ultimately correct that this will go to a Circuit Court. I give is 60/40 of being struck down. There’s a huge history of US immigration law being extraordinarily deferential and forgiving to families even when they break the law in how they got here.

 

You’re unlikely to find three judges to rule that the biochemist from the UK who married the girl he met while he was getting his PhD and had a US citizen child with needs to fly back to Glasgow, imo. And I don’t think SCOTUS would touch the topic with a 30 foot pole.

Edited Saturday at 04:07 AM by S2N

[Scandi 4,375]

7 hours ago, jw1 said:

its sad to think that a lot of people, including many here, think this is somehow good, in any conceivable way.  

but then again, I guess that's why you voted for this, now that you've climbed the ladder, its time to pull it up behind you.

Many of us who like this new change never "climbed the ladder", we applied via embassies in our home countries just like this new change urges people to do.

[Dashinka 26,746]

Since USCIS policy memos are not law, but guidance as to how USCIS IO’s and supervisors do their job, I don’t see this really amounting to much.  Now there possibly could be a bit more scrutiny, but the memo as written really provides no concrete guidance and it allows a wide latitude to interpretation.  This may make people think twice about AOSing, and some may go home and pursue consular processing, but others will not and whatever is interpreted as extraordinary circumstances will be what it is.

 

Time will tell, and I am sure lawsuits are being readied for the first person denied under this new memo, and in the end the courts will decide.

[midwinterrose 291]

19 hours ago, yuna628 said:

But my question still stands - does slow walking an applicant somehow change the eventual outcome or make you feel better that they were slow walked on the basis that your journey was like having a root canal? 

It will make a difference in people who entered on a legal visa and overstayed who have been living and working here.  They will no longer be able to marry years later and adjust status and have their overstay and unauthorized work forgiven.  As soon as they leave the country, the 3 or 10 year bar will take effect.  So overstays will no longer be able to adjust to legal permanent residents.

 

It makes no difference if foreigners are law abiding and pay taxes, the US government is obliged to operate in the best interest of its citizens.  Every foreigner in the country is additional competition for jobs and housing.  Nothing gives them the right to be here and compete with US citizens unless the government has given express permission in the form of a green card because they have determined it to be in the best interest of US citizens (e.g. a USC petitioned for a spouse, or a genius doctor doing cancer research).  This is not a personal judgement against immigrants legal or illegal.  It is simply fact that the responsibility of the US government is toward US citizens and no one else.

[Boiler 49,012]

1 minute ago, midwinterrose said:

It will make a difference in people who entered on a legal visa and overstayed who have been living and working here.  They will no longer be able to marry years later and adjust status and have their overstay and unauthorized work forgiven.  As soon as they leave the country, the 3 or 10 year bar will take effect.  So overstays will no longer be able to adjust to legal permanent residents.

 

It makes no difference if foreigners are law abiding and pay taxes, the US government is obliged to operate in the best interest of its citizens.  Every foreigner in the country is additional competition for jobs and housing.  Nothing gives them the right to be here and compete with US citizens unless the government has given express permission in the form of a green card because they have determined it to be in the best interest of US citizens (e.g. a USC petitioned for a spouse, or a genius doctor doing cancer research).  This is not a personal judgement against immigrants legal or illegal.  It is simply fact that the responsibility of the US government is toward US citizens and no one else.

I 601a

[midwinterrose 291]

14 minutes ago, Boiler said:

I 601a

Proving "extreme hardship" for the 601a is completely different than receiving automatic forgiveness of overstay or work through AOS.

[Boiler 49,012]

It is certainly more complicated and expensive. Never seen the logic of I 601a but then that goes for a lot of things.

[midwinterrose 291]

21 hours ago, S2N said:

I think the biggest question is what do they mean by temporary worker? Are we talking actual temporary worker visas that are meant primarily for seasonal farm work and hospitality?
 

Or are we talking people like my friends working as researchers at universities and biotech firms on non-immigrant visas? If we’re talking people who essentially live in the US for 5 years and get married after 2, it would create economic and social chaos for them to be forced to return to their home countries. 

 

If they came legally and married legally they are eligible to do consular processing of their spousal visa, which only requires them to return to their country for the interview.  Their USC spouse applies from within the US and the immigrant remains in the US during the processing leading up to the interview, but they must fly home to have the interview at their home consulate and receive their spousal visa, approximately 2-3 weeks.  So not as convenient as AOS, but it's not like they have to leave the US for years while it's being processed.

 

The biggest impact of this policy change, from what I can tell, will be on people who have overstays and/or unauthorized work.  This will create a major barrier in obtaining legal status.

[igoyougoduke 1,772]

9 hours ago, Scandi said:

Many of us who like this new change never "climbed the ladder", we applied via embassies in our home countries just like this new change urges people to do.

 the assumption from the administration here is that people who are doing AOS are doing fraud is wrong.  Congress wrote the immigration law that you can adjust status or file at consulate.  Everyone has a situation that is different. 

 

Some are privileged to walk into consulate and their immigrant visa is issued while others have to wait months/years/decades.

 

Anyways the admin is gone in 2 years or atleast post novembers where  things will get challenged.  It explains the urgency in meme orders 

[S2N 721]

1 hour ago, midwinterrose said:

If they came legally and married legally they are eligible to do consular processing of their spousal visa, which only requires them to return to their country for the interview.  Their USC spouse applies from within the US and the immigrant remains in the US during the processing leading up to the interview, but they must fly home to have the interview at their home consulate and receive their spousal visa, approximately 2-3 weeks.  So not as convenient as AOS, but it's not like they have to leave the US for years while it's being processed.

I mean, yes, but that’s not a good use of government resources. What exactly is USCIS going to be doing in field offices? They do not have immigration enforcement authority, despite what the current marketing is, and counselor I-130s can’t be adjudicated by FOs.

 

They more or less would exist to adjudicate naturalization petitions, and there aren’t enough of those to keep them busy, even with the current delays.

 

Meanwhile you’re shifting a significant workload to State that they currently do not have the capacity to absorb, either at NVC or the consulates.

 

The issue isn’t that the policy memo takes an unreasonable view of the statute, it’s that it builds a conflicting statutory interpretation from the established administrative precedent and implements it immediately without building the structure that permits the effective implementation.
 

I don’t really have a strong opinion on what the policy should be, but trying to overturn an established precedent that people have relied on for decades via a policy memo and immediately implementing it without a structure to accommodate (i.e. more staff at NVC and more FSOs) is not good governance.

1 hour ago, igoyougoduke said:

the assumption from the administration here is that people who are doing AOS are doing fraud is wrong.  Congress wrote the immigration law that you can adjust status or file at consulate.  Everyone has a situation that is different. 

And as I keep repeating, the still on the books binding precedent is that AOS is assumed for families, even if there is preconceived intent. The change your mind at the baggage claim people are annoying, but the current interpretation of the law is that that is supposed to be forgiven.

[Edward and Jaycel 2,722]

I have been scouring the AILA boards and members postings to see what I can find regarding Immigration Attorney's thoughts on this and I found a post from Mike Watkins, Immigration Attorney and Former Supervisory Immigration Services Officer with USCIS, now founder of Watkins Immigration Law. He said this today:

 

 

 

A Nuanced View of the AOS PM from a former USCIS Supervisor that Worked AOS

After spending most of the day Friday and some this weekend talking through the new AOS policy memo with my clients, I wanted to post what I hope is a short, honest assessment of what this memo does and does not do based on what I know now, and through the lens of my time working both family and employment based AOS as a USCIS officer and supervisor.

 

This is not legal advice and you should (especially now) consult with a licensed and experienced immigration attorney if considering applying for AOS. Please do not DM any questions but post them in the forum for others.

First, as with most policy memos USCIS issues, a lot will come down to how it is implemented and operationalized at the officer level. My understanding is that front line staff were not given a heads-up on this and have not been given any concrete adjudication guidance, which is very common. What happens next will largely depend on how officers are told to implement this policy, and how they actually do this.

 

In my view, this new memo is mostly a scare tactic. It is more of the same public messaging this administration has done since day one: try to get more immigrants not to apply for benefits they are eligible and legally entitled to receive and increase the population they can get to deport (self deport or through proceedings). They have tried this before in trump 1.0 with the public charge rule and this feels very similar in that regards. It is also, by and large, laughably wrong on almost all significant aspects of the history of AOS. The policy manual still contains this section on its 245(a) section for example: “In 1952, Congress made the pre-examination process unnecessary by creating INA 245, which allowed eligible aliens to obtain LPR status through adjustment of status without leaving the United States. Congress indicated that adjustment should be used for purposes of family unity or otherwise be in the public interest.” It’s not a “loophole” or meant to be used only for “extraordinary” cases; that defies clear congressional intent and the Agency’s own guidance.

 

Beyond the primary purpose, this new guidance could lead to a more difficult adjudication environment for AOS for most applicants. I don’t think this means AOS is dead for most people, and I also don’t think everything will continue like it did before, after this memo. I do think USCIS will start to look more closely at all kinds of factors and in some cases, make a discretionary analysis that could lead to denials, the type that it hasn’t routinely done in the past. This could and likely will lead to far more paperwork needed to submit, more legal analysis by attorneys, and longer adjudication time as officers must now conduct a more thorough analysis. For my own cases, I am already strongly looking at how to frame my applicants to fit within the recognized congressional intent explicitly mentioned above: family unity and public interest.

 

Where this heads entirely depends on how far the Agency wants to take it. If it tries to treat this guidance as it portrays it for public consumption (only granting “extraordinary” cases), it will be buried in lawsuits and losses. But, if it starts performing a more nuanced and careful analysis balancing positive and negative factors, it will likely result in slightly more denials, but much, much more time and effort needed for both applicants and the Agency.

[Boiler 49,012]

When I forst saw this I assumed the intent was to dissuade the changing their mind at baggage reclaim filers.bThere is certainly an argument to restrict processing to Consulates but that would require a change in the law and I long ago came to the conclusion I would be dead and buried before there is any reform.

[TBoneTX 49,823]

3 hours ago, Edward and Jaycel said:

A Nuanced View of the AOS PM from a former USCIS Supervisor that Worked AOS

His political bias comes through, as does the predictable beefing about the inconvenience to his clients.  Would sure like to see more opinions about the policy memo.

[Edward and Jaycel 2,722]

1 minute ago, TBoneTX said:

His political bias comes through, as does the predictable beefing about the inconvenience to his clients.  Would sure like to see more opinions about the policy memo.

 

Without a doubt. I'm hoping the pool of analysis deepens as we get a bit farther away from the publish date of the PM.

[Nagpetisyon 10]

On 5/22/2026 at 11:43 AM, Edward and Jaycel said:

 

I get the skepticism however a Policy Memo cannot rewrite the law and Section 214(d)(1) of the INA [8 U.S.C. 1184(d)(1)] explicitly mandates Adjustment of Status (AOS) as the intended and legally required route to a Green Card for a K-1 visa holder who fulfills the marriage requirement. 

I challenged AI to review the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and make a case that K-1 must perform AOS within the USA and not leave the country.
It pointed out that the INA does specifically authorize a K‑1 beneficiary to adjust status inside the United States after marrying the U.S. citizen petitioner.  
It does this not by saying “they adjust in the U.S.” explicitly, but by creating a legal structure where adjustment of status is the only lawful path, and consular processing is legally impossible for a K‑1 who has already entered.
The legal structure is the following 3 sections of the INA.

INA §214(d) — The K‑1 is admitted solely to marry the petitioner.
This section establishes the purpose of the K‑1 admission:
    They must intend to marry the petitioner within 90 days
    They are admitted only for that purpose

INA §245(d) — The K‑1 may only adjust through marriage to the petitioner.
Once they marry, they become the immediate relative of a U.S. citizen, which is the category eligible for adjustment under §245(a).

INA §245(a) — Adjustment of Status is available to anyone who was “inspected and admitted”
A K‑1 fiancé(e) is admitted at a U.S. port of entry.
That means they meet the threshold requirement of §245(a).
 

K-1 beneficiaries enter the US with the idea they are here to marry and stay. Clear intent to immigrate and objective to form family units seem factors that would make it crazy for their AOS to be done back in their home countries ( where they ALREADY did consular inspection),