Immigrants in Houston and across Texas could face a serious new hurdle to obtaining U.S. citizenship because of a new policy change by the Trump administration.
U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy memo late last week, stating that immigrants who are in the United States seeking green cards must return to their home countries to apply, except in "extraordinary circumstances."
"We're returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigated our nation's immigration system properly," USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said in a statement. "When aliens apply from their home country, it 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."
Houston immigration attorney Ali Zakaria said the new policy could create a legal nightmare for immigrants trying to apply for citizenship or avoid deportation.
"The courts are going to be inundated with these applications," Zakaria said. "[USCIS] has this quota of putting 3,000 people in deportation per day. Now you're adding people who are legally eligible to get a green card in this category. It might be years before these cases are resolved in immigration court or in federal court."
The situation is even more complicated for immigrants from nearly 40 countries in which the Trump administration suspended U.S. consular services this past January.
"For example, if you happen to be a citizen of Pakistan working or living in the U.S. legally and if you wanted to apply for a green card, you could not go to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan and apply for a green card, and at the same time you could not file an application for a green card with within the U.S. and expect [USCIS] to approve it based on this new memo. So, this is a matter of for closing the door for the green cards for legal applicants in the United States.
Another Houston immigration attorney, Gordon Quan, said the policy memo for those seeking what's formally known as "adjustment of status" is likely to encourage people to break the law.
"Over 600,000 people annually seek adjustment of status," Quan said. "Just to think of the impact of such a large group having to return to their home countries to consular posts that are overwhelmed as is is just impractical for all people and for the government in general."
Quan said the policy memo poses even greater challenges for individuals who are seeking asylum in the U.S. because of dangerous conditions in their home countries.
"I just had a young lady yesterday ... for an interview for adjustment of status whose family had sought asylum in the United States," Quan said. "She came here when she was 6 years old. She’s now 23 years old, married to a U.S. citizen. She has no family back there. Her record is that of a person who has sought asylum from her home country. She’s fearful that if she ever goes back, she’ll never be able to return to her husband in the United States."
USCIS declined Houston Public Media’s request for an interview on the policy change.
The policy memo does not carry any apparent exemptions for individuals who risked their lives fighting on the U.S.' behalf in Afghanistan or Iraq.
"It's an abomination, especially for the Afghan folks," said Shawn VanDiver, president of the nonprofit AfghanEvac, "They were brought here by the United States Government [after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021], with the expectation that they would process for their green cards, move on with their lives, even while they were on a temporary status here, and what they're trying to do here is make up new and different reasons to send people back and send them into certain danger.
VanDiver said that the policy change could have lasting consequences for U.S. national security.
"People around the world have the Internet. They can see this. They know what we're doing to these folks. They know how the United States of America is treating who we called our friends for 20 years," VanDiver said. "Why would anybody else ever sign up to help us anywhere in the world?"
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