It could get harder for thousands of immigrants in Arizona applying for green cards to become legal permanent residents under a new policy recently announced by the Trump administration.
Immigrants already in the United States applying for green cards will face extra scrutiny, according to the memo, and some may have to leave the United States and return to their home countries to apply under a policy announced Friday, May 23.
Thousands of immigrants in Arizona and hundreds of thousands in the United States could be affected by the new memo, through increased scrutiny of their applications or having to leave the country to apply with no guarantee they will be able to return, according to immigration lawyers.
Immigration lawyers said they believe the new memo violates long-standing immigration law passed by Congress and will face lawsuits to stop its implementation.
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In the meantime, the memo has already generated confusion and chaos among immigrants applying for green cards or planning to apply for green cards, immigration lawyers said.
"I think the memo is meant to scare and dissuade," Chandler immigration lawyer Gerald Burns said.
Trump administration officials said the new memo is aimed at shifting the process of applying for green cards back to U.S. consulates in the home countries of people applying, as Congress intended.
"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 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that administers the processing of green cards and other immigration benefits.
"From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a green card must returned to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances," Kahler said.
The new policy allows the U.S. immigration system to function "as the law intended instead of incentivizing loop," Kahler said.
Requiring immigrants seeking green cards to apply from their home country "reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency," Kahler said.
The new policy memo is aimed at non-immigrants such as students, temporary workers or people who come to the United States for a short time or specific purpose, and then apply for a green card while already in the U.S., usually through a legal permanent resident or U.S. citizen relative or an employer.
Immigrants already in the United States applying for green cards will face extra scrutiny, and some may have to leave the United States and return to their home countries to apply under a policy announced Friday.
"Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the green card process."
The new memo also appears aimed at undocumented immigrants who apply for green cards after marrying legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens or through children born in the United States once they turn 21, making them eligible to apply for green cards for their parents.
"Following the law allows the majority of these cases to be handled by the State Department at U.S. consular offices abroad and frees up limited USCIS resources to focus on processing other cases that fall under its purview," Kahler said.
Meanwhile, the memo touched off a wave of confusion at the start of a long holiday weekend among immigrants applying for green cards, and among immigration lawyers scrambling to understand what it means.
Burns, the Chandler immigration lawyer, said numerous immigrants called his office or walked in after learning of the policy change, wondering how the memo might affect their applications.
While the statement released by USCIS framed the memo as a major shift in policy requiring virtually all immigrants applying for green cards to return to their home countries to apply, the memo does not actually state that, Burns said.
The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 clearly established that immigrants in the United States who are eligible to apply for green cards can do so without having to return to their home countries, Burns said.
Yasser Sanchez, a Mesa immigration lawyer, also said he believes the memo attempts to supersede decades-old federal immigration law by telling immigrants eligible for green cards they must return to their home countries to apply.
For example, under the memo, a person who enters with a visa, overstays, and then marries a U.S. citizen would have to return to their home country to apply for a green card.
"But that has nothing to do with what Congress passed with the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which outlined specifically that anybody that entered with a visa that has a qualifying relative and is otherwise admissible, meaning that they don't have a criminal record or they don't have previous immigration consequences is able to adjust. That's what the federal law states," Sanchez said.
What's more, some immigrants who had been living in the United States without legal status could face being banned from returning to the country for 10 years once they leave, even if they are eligible for a green card, Sanchez said. The policy will result in many more separations of families, he said.
Sanchez called the memo an attack on the nation's legal immigration system. He said the memo will encounter legal challenges, but in the meantime, immigrants applying for green cards will face disruptions.
The memo "is not only illegal, it puts hundreds of thousands of immigrants in limbo," he said.
