Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says

What “the books” say is that H1B is a “nonimmigrant” visa for people “temporarily” in the U.S. It’s right there in 8 USC 1101(a)(15)(H).

“Adjustment of status” is an option at the discretion of the administration (8 USC 1255(a)):

> The status of an alien who was inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States … may be adjusted by the Attorney General, in his discretion and under such regulations as he may prescribe, to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence

Note the “may” and the “in his discretion.” Basically, if the government really likes you, it can change your status. But that doesn’t change the primary purpose of the H1 visa from a temporary worker program into a permanent residency program.

Deregulation and union busting greatly expanded in the 80s leading to the high point of the country in the 90s as well.

Japan only requires leaving for converting a tourist/digital nomad visa and some Working Holiday Visas to a normal working/spouse visa. And WHV to normal status is really dependent on the partner country. For example Australians don't need to leave, but Canadians and Brits do, and I've heard that immigration will sometimes just grant the change of status anyways. So that seems to indicate that Japan doesn't really care.

Needing to leave to convert a normal working/spouse status to PR is not the norm anywhere.

I think one of the primary divergences of thought happening here is whether H1B is indeed a temporary visa or whether it was meant to be a stepping stone to a green card.

H1B is only 36 years old. The Immigration Act of 1990 always meant it to be a temporary status, which is why it is so easily imperiled.

It's a shame you scrolled past pages of comments and missed the point entirely.

The fact that it's "common in other countries" is entirely irrelevant to what the United States does.

It's not even clear it's common in other countries. Japan is notorious for being insular.

This is a garbage move by this administration that flies in the face of decades of precedents _in the United States_.

Read the law! It’s there in black and white! It’s 8 USC 1101(a)(15) and (a)(15)(H). It’s a “nonimmigrant” visa for people “temporarily” in the U.S. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1101

How is it “delusional” to interpret a law that’s plastered with the words “non immigrant” and “temporary” and say that maybe it shouldn’t be a de facto path to permanent residency?

H1b (the visa status of nearly everyone here affected by this change) is only 36 years old. We're not talking about ancient case law here.

Okay but this has not been the case in the US and everyone knows that. We can try to make things up to rationalize why this being done.

Or, we can be honest, and acknowledge these actors have proven themselves to be irrational. What is happening is that an end-goal is desired, and then the trump administration is working backwards to make it happen.

That’s strange. I was able to renew a work permit in Canada while staying (and continuing work) in Canada. Same for study permit. This was over a decade ago, so perhaps things have changed.

They also were not called visas, but permits. Visa is for entering the country, permit is for staying.

Even if it is common (i don't think this is required any more anyways), just why? Why do we need to make someone run back and forth across the border for the immigration department to do some paperwork? It seems purely designed to inconvenience people for absolutely no gain to anyone.

You say "normal" and then add the other paragraphs, which are very clearly not normal. Common maybe.

Your comment is completely wrong:

For example:

> Overturning Chevron became a mission of the conservative movement

Chevron’s biggest proponent was Justice Scalia!

> A consequence of that was that the Supreme Court accepted an interpretation that executive agencies should be government by the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA") instead. So that's been the law of the land since Loper Bright.

Executive agencies have always been governed by the APA. That’s why it’s called the “Administrative” Procedures Act.

> To change an agency rule now requires a complicated process unde rthe APA of proposing a rule change, getting public comment and generally following a statutory procedure

That’s been true since 1946. That was the whole point of the APA. Chevron itself arose out of an EPA rule making under the APA.

You’re completely mistaken about what Chevron was about. It was just about whether courts must defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, or whether they get to decide the interpretation themselves.

Thank you for this fantastically informative comment.

> There are people who cannot or should not leave the US to consular process. They may have incurred unlawful presence that will then get them a 3 or 10 year bar from returning. This bar may well apply if they have to consular process instead of do an AoS. Some people may not be able to leave (eg asylees).

This feels like it might be the actual motivation of the Trump admin to do this change. The cruelty is indeed the point.

It is actually remarkable how much of the bullshit we have to put up with comes down to our giving power to craven or unscrupulous men with a chip on their shoulder.

Bush W. and his father's single term.

Biden and his family's troubles with the federal government.

Musk and gestures broadly at South Africa

Trump

I'm sure the list goes on.

Not at all, no - embassies are granted special privileges but are still the territory of the country they are in.

No. This is a popular myth.

If anything everyone else is under reacting.

You have ICE officers randomly abducting people off appearance alone and then detaining them for days if not weeks. If you were a citizen the whole time, cool who cares.

No one in America has any rights.

That aside, even as someone who's been in this country for generations, I've been exploring options to leave.

America is behind most of the developed world in terms of standards of living. I was in Asia for a while and I felt a fraction of the fear I constantly do at home.

It's not getting better.

Gave back my green card the moment I left the US. No longer wanted the hassle and ties to an unpredictable regime. Haven’t looked back.

I don't think you're overreacting. Received mine in 2020 and decided to move as well.

Not just uncertainty, but the apparent speedrunning of making the US an undesirable place to live compared to other countries.

Where did you move to and what are you doing now? (I'd love to hear from anyone else who's left too)

I think the point is that they are contributing to the US, and were the best option for their employer, and are supporting their communities, etc.

All things that we should be supporting if we are indeed wishing our nation to prosper.

A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, so we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country.

Taxes are supposed to pay for public services. An efficient visa system is a public service. If you pay tons of taxes but don’t get a public service that’s personally very important to you, it’s natural to feel let down

You have to do a lot when you get a green card to prove you won't be a burden on the US tax payer. It's a big part of the system and a big part of the anti-immigrant rhetoric

> Genuinely curious, what does taxes have to do with it?

It's popular trope from the GOP that immigrants are an economic drain on the US. They get free <insert whatever you want>, so the US must throw them out to save money.

A lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric involves some version of the lie that immigrants don't pay taxes.

> I don’t think paying your dues should make you more likely to get through the pipeline. After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

https://www.trumpcard.gov/

Citizenship is tied to the right to vote and Taxation without Representation was literally the driving force for the creation of America itself

> After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

You mean they’ve contributed generously for the compensation they’ve earned?

One can reasonably argue that not paying your dues should exclude you from the pipeline.

Uncle Sam likes tax payers.

To show that they're not freeloaders. A lot of right-wingers have a belief that immigrants are implicitly freeloaders, and therefore getting rid of them will make the economy better.

Of course it's just not true. Like most current Republican talking points, it's plainly fabricated; it's an outright lie. But, since a lot of people believe it, it's useful to reminder everyone that its not the case.

Signaling.

A very common xenophobic narrative is that foreigners do two things at the same time (1) steal your jobs and (2) drain your social systems. Another even more vile one one would be anything to do with coming for your daughters and women, but for this you will have to favtor in race. Because a rich white Frenchman coming your daughter doesn't have the same ring to it for bigots.

If the US, a country with a too low birthrate, throws out even the best kind of migrant (namely the kind that generates a lot of value for the country), you're going to be in deeper shit than ever before for decades to come.

Now I agree that paying taxes or not should have nothing to do with it.

Don’t listen to this op, you don’t need to change your race.

If I was you I’d choose to be a multi-billionaire instead and keep my race.

Even those still halfway up said ladder: https://x.com/flowersslop/status/2058161240350794165?s=20

This shit is sadly true.

They're doing this on the basis that crimes were committed before naturalization so therefore the N-400 submitted was fraudulent.

i’m fairly confident the gold card is the only kind of immigration they want to encourage now. you either pay up or go home and cross your fingers

"Land of Opportunity" is in fact a long-used nickname for the United States, so your position appears to be mostly rejected.

That was literally the premise of America at its foundation, and it’s a better national identity than this weird, ahistorical attempt at white christian nationhood currently popular on the American right.

It is not as a country. Certain regions within the nation are still growing.

My country is not in the list (Mexico, not that we need to... Americans hate us), but I just cannot comprehend why people would go through all the pain for the immigration process in the US.

Actually, it kind of make sense why only the most desperate try to get into the US , people who have something to lose are naturally repelled by the bureaucracy.

I've always thought I'd end up in the US at some point, but as someone who prefers to make things rather than spend years at some faceless megacorp (writing up cover sheets for TPS reports), it never seemed hugely viable, even starting out from a first-world country.

Now it doesn't seem viable at all. Meanwhile, anyone who shows up illegally is merely "undocumented", and half of US politics consists in coddling them (the other half in enforcing existing immigration laws capriciously). Even for someone who's quite pro-immigration like myself, that's just bizarre. There's no way this is a functional system.

Most of the people in my circles don't want to go to the US anymore. I suppose I'll ride it out and see what comes next (after 2028 at minimum). If I ever make it, I'll have spent many of my productive years outside the US, since I wasn't welcome during those. Weird system.

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How so?

That's what I just commented as well, I'm not from the US but that seems so obvious, in which country it's a "right" of some sort? It should definitely be hard, maybe even very hard to emigrate there, to show strong commitment and intent and most especially you should have something special to bring to the table knowing you didn't abed by the same rules growing-up (not the same level of education necessarily and so-on) which is a bit unfair for local citizens.

I don't really understand the position of many comments which seems to be somehow "We should be welcoming the world" but like why? Why wouldn't you prioritize your citizens first especially seeing the job loss lately?

>Immigrating to the usa is not a right. It is granted.

It's not about rights, it's about keeping your promises.

"Join the army and get a green card" -- oops did we say that?

But then we have only been fair weather friends (see how we treated pretty much any one who put their lives on the line) so I'm not very surprised at what's happening.

Sure, and now they don’t need to keep their talent through economic policy. The USA is being kind enough to force them to stay in Europe/Asia :)

Some people see fascism as a ply. It’s a thing

If you're looking for international precedent, this is an old vs. new world issue. Birthright citizenship is rare in the old world, but it is the default for the Americas. Canada, most of Latin America, and a decent part of the Caribbean have birthright citizenship.

Are you going to allow ER’s to refuse patients and let people die on the street? What if the Patient is unconscious with no identification but looks Hispanic? Can they be turned away?

Stripping away all wefare because of immigration is a bad bad bad idea.

Kids. Kids are the piece of this policy you haven’t considered. Poor people have kids too. Then you have starving babies in the street and 5 year olds trying to find work to pay for food. Then you might think, “okay, maybe we take care of kids. Healthcare? Food? Education?” Great. But do you have forced separation from parents in order to provide these services just to the kids? What if the parents eat the kids food because they’re starving. Now you have to feed the parents. And providing care for orphans costs more than healthcare for parents, so probably rational to give them healthcare too. And do you want to create a system where having a kid gets you food and healthcare? Probably don’t want that incentive. So now you’re maybe giving food and healthcare to people without kids.

So, whenever you think about purely capitalistic policies with no social policies, we just have to be okay with having a large number of babies and toddlers starving on the streets in front of us.

When you hear about republicans cutting $900 billion from Medicaid, and millions of families losing coverage, that means children. Almost 50% of Medicaid recipients are children. Most of the other 50% are their parents. So millions of children now do not have healthcare. Your post advocates for millions more to lose coverage. That translates to children dying and having lifelong disabilities from otherwise preventable illnesses.

The other inevitable outcome of policies like this is exploitation of women. It might start with “voluntary” sex work, but it becomes a bigger business that invites true exploitation and rapidly leads to human trafficking. Btw, that “voluntary” is there because it’s usually a choice between sex work and spiraling into homelessness and poverty - so not super voluntary to begin with. And we’re not even counting women more women who stay in abusive relationships because they are fully dependent on their partner for sustenance and shelter.

All that is to say that anytime advocate for a certain set of social policies over another, it’s usually informative to look at how they impact the most vulnerable in our society. Start with kids, then consider disabled and women. And finally ask why we’re generally okay with men starving on the street but not toddlers.

That’s by design. Maybe not initially, but we’ve been having this immigration debate as long as I’ve been politically aware, which is going on 4 decades. It absolutely is the desired outcome today.

Is this a surprise? This is hardly anything new. The United States was built with slavery.

> This is the part that is the wildest to me. The current system seems to generate a collection of second-class citizens

What do you mean seems too. The biggest proponents of immigration routinely ask "who's going to work the fields?" As a call to allow immigration. I don't know how to interpret that as anything but importing an underclass.

> But I haven't thought through this policy well. Maybe there is something this seemingly solution is missing.

What about long term immigrants who end up disabled through no fault of their own? Or who get cancer? Or who end up having a child (who is an American citizen) and that child is special needs and the immigrant can't manage a full time job and care for their child? If they get pregnant and end up on bed rest or with a traumatic birth that takes them out of the workforce for a period of time?

There are ways to end up needing to rely on welfare that aren't due to laziness or a desire for handouts.

If the answer is 'kick them out', I'd be worried about what we're teaching our American kids watching. There are two lessons they could pick up, and neither is good for their moral development or sense of self. The first is that anyone who lacks the ability to work has no value, and that will engender greater alienation and isolation as they place all of their self-worth on their ability to earn money. They'll look upon the elderly, children, and caretakers with disdain (Interestingly, this probably won't help the birth rates either...). The second is that they are protected but those people should be disposed of when they're not useful. This will make them arrogant and introduce the idea of dehumanizing other groups, which will further the cracks of division in our society.

There are vastly fewer "immigrants for handouts" than right wing media would like you to believe. Coming to the US is incredibly challenging. People who do it are mostly young and wish to work, to support families. Handouts don't accomplish that.

It take tremendous effort to immigrate, legally or illegally. Anyone telling you that they are lazy is obviously lying.

Best I can give you is Russian oligarchs and criminals, and corporate welfare. Deal?

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> The current system seems to generate a collection of second-class citizens

Poor choice of words. Illegals are not citizens. That's the whole point.

> have no recourse if they're exploited

The recourse is to go back. In the era when you could just immigrate to the US just by getting on a boat (before the Immigration Act of 1924), about 1/3 of immigrants went back to their home country if they did not make it in the US.

See:

> From 1908 to 1932, 12 million individuals migrated to the United States. Over the same period, four million returned to their source country.

-- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144... (you have to pirate it to view the full thing)

But now, the expectation of leftists is that the government is somehow supposed to help the failed immigrants.

Strong border policies with moderate (weaker) and selective enforcement will give the combination that GP describes: enough supply backed by the threat of strong individual penalties if someone here illegally “gets out of line”.

> because a weak border creates a larger pool of illegal immigrants to draw from.

A larger pool with more rights and less fear of being deported. That means it's easier for them to pick and choose the jobs they do or even to start their own businesses.

They could, for example, form a union without the fear of deportation.

Look, if this were all about stopping illegal immigration, there are very fast paths to doing that. A prime one would be punishing not the immigrant, but the employer of the immigrant. Fine every farm in the US that employs an illegal immigrant and you'd quickly see the number of those jobs being worked drop.

But that's not what ICE is about which is why they and legislators haven't done that really basic enforcement.

Heck, at the start of this admin, Trump had to pull back ICE from raiding farms because the business interests of the farmers collided with the xenophobia of Steven Miller.

> People flood US borders

They have "flooded" the US borders because in the first Trump term, Trump instituted a policy of having applicants for all sorts of reasons to have to stay in Mexico before they can be accepted.

That's the primary reason why there are now huge encampments at the border. They weren't there under Obama, Bush, or Clinton.

> why don't people stay in their own country or go somewhere else?

A lot of people are asylum seekers, and a lot of that reason they are seeking asylum is US policy which has destroyed their home nations. The best example of this being the likes Venezuela, Cuba, and Haite. The US putting international trade embargos on governments it doesn't like, plunging them into poverty, creates a bunch of refuges.

Some people are simply seeking a better life. Some have bought into american propaganda about how awesome the US is to live in. Some people are simply trafficked into the US for the explicit purpose of being exploited. (In fact, that's the majority of human trafficking in the US [1]).

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/human-trafficking-quick-facts

It’s a visa that you do need to apply for. And it’s not a guaranteed thing. If it doesn’t work out. Kids stay in the US and parents get kicked out?

> This is not true, India has something called “Overseas Citizenship of India” which is technically not a citizenship even though the name says, but its a life time visa available for US citizens of Indian origin. And you don’t have to give up US citizenship

The OCI card is better thought of as a green card that you have to reapply for once at the age of 65.

It provides the ability to live and work, with some minor restrictions, but none of the typical benefits of citizenship that wouldn't come with permanent residency in the US.

> it could massively disrupt their education and well-being to throw them into another system

I'm curious: If these changes aren't designed to be harmful in these ways, then what do we imagine is the intention?

The population has always been anti immigration. But what the population wants is barely considered.

While you are correct, that's a minor issue in an otherwise cogent post by the parent, so addressing those other more substantial points first would have made the debate better.

> This is wrong. There is no minimum time in the country for a green card. You are thinking of citizenship. That is different.

You are incorrect. What you said is technically true in that there is no statute that requires it, but in practice, OP is correct.

It varies depending on the country of origin, but in the case of immigrants who hold citizenship from India, which is the country OP mentioned, you can likely expect to have to wait that period or even much longer before becoming eligible, unless you have a way to otherwise jump the queue.

Wow. Downvotes for stating an obviously verifiable fact.

HN is now filled with agenda pushers peddling obvious fake information about the US.

No? If you're born in the US you have US citizenship, you're American. You don't just magically get citizenship for your parents home country, at least not for most countries.

A lot of countries don’t provide citizenship automatically without condition by blood. China for example, a kid only inherits citizenship if one parent is a chinese citizen and not a PR of any other country (so kids born to Chinese parents with green cards don’t count, which doesn’t really matter in this case).

Also the USA used to have weird rules about young mothers not transferring citizenship automatically (which the whole Obama birther myth relied on).

Sometimes. In many/most countries, it requires at minimum that both parents be citizens of the same country. In a few countries, dual citizenship is banned completely, so if the kid is a US citizen they cannot be the country's citizen.

Yes and one step further: it is attention, ultimately to extract wealth.

Trump is a distractor and can make a whole country forget about <insert recent insanity>. Passing a judge is a minor detail here.

Of course it is stupid to talent-leak your country but he just needs you to forget about $LATEST_SCANDAL. That's the value for him. Trump doesn't care about the future of US.

And distracting does not take skill. It only takes a mind poisoned to the core. He will throw anything in his chaos machine to extract wealth. And US has an endless supply of those juicy valuables and values that you can sacrifice and shed.

Let's see what next week has in store!

Children integrate into the country so much more easily.

This is over a hundred year old rule and common in "the new world". You can guess why it is common if you think about the phrase I put in quotes. All these countries are composed of immigrants...

Here's a short and incomplete list: USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile.

The logic is that the culture is what makes you part of the country, not the blood in your veins.

The other side of that logic is that you're not guaranteed citizenship to the country of your parents. It certainly isn't automatic.

They still do the tiny print in a Sunday newspaper, they just also now are supposed to post on LinkedIn and the website (aka normal hiring process).

Interesting that there is a difference between minimum qualifications and actually qualified to do the job.

What is minimum qualifications? Enough to get an interview?

Perhaps. But given the volume of abuse that appears to be out there the tactic is more turn it all off then selectively back on where appropriate.

Thats obviously extreme but given the abuse in the status quo it’s hard to defend what was going on and whine about this now. Some folks are obviously angry, but that anger is better directed at those that were abusing the system not those trying to fix it.

Only if that job board was an actually useful and common source for genuine hiring. If it becomes “these companies are checking a box, don’t bother applying” or “these companies are considering an H1-B application, flood them with resumes”, neither of those is helpful to qualified workers who actually want to find a job.

You've just described what already has to occur for PERM, you have to post on the respective State Workforce Agency website.

I’m pretty sure you can both be out of the country, at least me and my wife were. We were married long enough to get a fast track though, according to the rules at the time.

> Immigration policy in the current administration (which seems to be driven by Stephen Miller) is not based around legalaities, it's based around cutting immigration as much as possible

White immigrants are fine with this administration.

"All but 3 of 6,069 refugees taken in by Trump are White South Africans"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/05/22/trump-south-a...

> The US at least does not depend on migration as much as Germany, I believe.

To me it feels like the US pretends they don’t need immigrants when:

1. The overwhelming majority of current US residents were immigrants themselves at some point in the last 150 years (only natives were there, everyone else immigrated from somewhere)

2. The US wouldn’t function without illegal immigrants

3. Every country is short of workers in one domain or another. Encouraging immigration in these domains (see how Canada does it for instance) would be the smart move. But instead… yeah let’s make it even harder across the board

People are repelled by country shopping by 3rd worlders.

EU countries are working on imigration rules that would allow for bringing imigrant labour without ever extending citizen privileges to them. A sort of permanent uderclass. This is what voters want at this time.

I'm not from the US, but isn't it like almost every country in the world? Reducing immigration when it's already too much does increase job availability for locals (which should always be priority imo). Immigration to a country is a privilege, not really a right, but again I don't really know about the US, I just know that like Emigrating to Japan permanently or like in Dubai getting citizenship is very difficult and it does sound normal to me, why should it be easy? You want ultra motivated potential citizens, not the ones that just want to come for a few years to improve their CV or just pile up savings and then bail, they don't bring anything to the country as they'll not spend in the long-term within the US and will not really assimilate as well.

I don't think this is "racist", even Europeans are in the same boat to apply as far as I know, those are mostly white, I don't think racist is the right term here. Isn't America already heavily mixed?

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Why don't they just say what they mean, and ban immigration completely? Are they trying to trick most immigrants into leaving voluntarily so they can deny re-entry?

>> so that even legal immigration is restricted or difficult

like it was simple and easy before that. Now it becomes borderline impossible

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This is true. I resisted this conclusion for a long time, imagining it was tendentious, but there is really no other way to understand his rhetoric and his actions.

I thought his second name was Goebbles?

Yup, he's not minced words in all the interviews he's done and he's happy to label US citizens "terrorists" if he thinks they're in his way or 'race traitors'.

All because he was a massive loser in middle/high school, and like most bigots, his hatred is rooted in needing to have someone "beneath" him. So he based his entire personality and life around hating anyone not straight, white, male, and "American" so he could feel better about himself.

It is amazing how many people have been killed from all the policies he's been ramming through, simply because of a huge inferiority complex.

It's also a bit sad how every generation of immigrants turn around and pull the ladder up behind them.

You should double check Project 2025 before solely blaming Miller.

I've known people who left for a brief period during the GC process on emergency basis and then were put into a literal jail on their return to the USA.

This is true. But you might be conflating two different issues: having to apply for a greencard from outside the country, and being restricted in traveling outside the US during the (potentially very lengthy) pendency of that application.

I'm not sure I share your optimism. What is a worker on an H-class visa, if not a "temporary worker"?

I read this with the assumption that "nonimmigrant visa" applies to every category of visa listed here under "Nonimmigrant Visa Categories":

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf...

I originally thought that this new regulation would only apply to, say, B-1/B-2 visitors applying to adjust their status (which is how some immigrants bring their parents, for example), but nowhere in the policy it explicitly excludes so called “dual intent” visas (H or L), so given the whole anti-immigration approach of the current administration, I won't be surprised if it turns out that the regular work visa pathway to green card is affected by that too.

Edit: the policy actually indeed mentions dual intent categories:

> USCIS reminds its officers that applying for adjustment of status is not inconsistent with simultaneously maintaining nonimmigrant status in a category with dual intent.

It does it in a way that will, for sure, cause confusion though.

[1]: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-...

Looks like it applies to all visitors.

From https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-pr...,

> Adjustment of status is the process that you can use to apply for lawful permanent resident status (also known as applying for a Green Card) when you are present in the United States. This means that you may get a Green Card without having to return to your home country to complete visa processing.

"Non-immigrants" is a legal term that means surprisingly more than you think. People on H visas, for example, are "non-immigrants" and would fall under this.

If you come to the U.S. on a visa that’s explicitly labeled a “nonimmigrant” visa for people who are “coming temporarily to the United States to perform services,” then it’s not “cruel” to actually enforce that. Those words are literally in the law.

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> The cruelty is the point.

This phrase is one of those viral ear worm kinda things tossed into so many conversations, it doesn't actually mean anything at this point it's so overused.

That isn’t cruelty. It’s immigration policy that the rest of the world already has

All I hear is that there's a subset of people that don't want immigrants at all. And for some godforsaken reason they got hold of the executive, legislative and supreme court

Because coming to the United States on a non-immigrant visa is pretty much the only way that a person can hope to become a US citizen (or green card holder) eventually.

because the government realize more than 75 years ago that conditions change and "adjustment of status" can be in everyone's best interest. People get married, students graduate and get jobs or start companies, and so on. It was never about rubber-stamping greencards; they're still tough to get. It was about making it more efficient and keeping strong players in the US. If you send 100 students back to their home country after they graduate, more than 50 of them won't come back.

H1B and O1 are dual intent..

There isn't really such a thing as an immigrant visa. These non-immigrant visas are the only legal route to come here, by and large, excluding a few obvious exceptions like marriage to an American.

Also, it's quite hard to become a permanent resident/immigrant even without the obstacle of this being categorically prohibited. My family, for instance, overcame some very low odds of success to make this happen (highly educated, both PhDs, for what it's worth).

I have learned that most Americans, probably through no fault of their own, have absolutely no understanding of how their own immigration system works. The options for legal immigration were _extremely_ limited and byzantine, and have been for decades, long before Trump.

This seems like one of the most obtuse or bad faith comments I’ve ever seen.

Practically every country has pathways to permanent residence or citizenship via non immigrant visas, including the US.

Why? Because it makes practical sense. You can be living in the US on a H1 visa for 6 years, and at this point you could have a wife, kids etc, so it makes sense to have a pathway to residency where you don’t have to leave the country at that point.

I don’t see a carve out for spousal or family reunification applications.

Those weren’t services for the benefit of the immigrant. Those were a service to the US citizen who sponsored them and had to sign up to be on the hook to take care of their welfare.

The government was very clear to my spouse that she could divorce me the second her application was granted and I was still on the hook for any welfare she may end up needing.

This is just being anti immigrant. The same way they talk about illegal aliens and then you find out they really mean legal asylum seekers because they don’t like the process.

Or when they use the phrase Heritage Americans to discount recent immigrants.

Or when they just straight up say we have too much legal immigration.

The only surprising thing about this change in policy to me is that they are still keeping a veneer of not being racist on it, instead of just being as open as they have in other cases.

There is no immigrant visa by that logic. Unless you count the one that costs a million dollars.

I take that as a given, too, especially considering the diabolical architecture of Miller Thought.

The secret sauce is bad faith and crime.

Sure, it’s temporary. But what if you’ve been working in the US for a while, like your job, and want to go permanent? Does it make sense to have to give up your job, move back home where there may not be a US consulate, and then apply from there? Or just apply for permanent residency? Why does your physical location matter if you’re in the country legally already?

If the intention was to limit the number of people becoming permanent residents, then they could have done that explicitly. But by doing it this way, they are just fucking with people. And the talent that built our tech will take all their knowledge and skills back to their home country.

If the intention is to strengthen other countries by stopping their brain drain, then this would be a good move.

The US is a common law system, where the law is a combination of statutes and precedent. The statutes alone are insufficient for interpreting the law.

Your approach would be more correct in a civil law system, but there are no pure civil law systems anywhere in the world. In actual civil law countries, once there is an established interpretation of the law, it usually cannot be changed without legislative action.

People change their minds. Is that illegal? Maybe they had the intention to only be in the US temporarily at first, but now they'd like to get permanent residence. Why shouldn't they be able to apply for it, from the US, while still on the temporary visa?

Then the administration can say yes or no, in the same way that they can say yes or no to someone applying from abroad.

BS!! H is a dual intent visa. Do you have any idea how the law works?

I believe there are tax/nation border issues. Can a Polish citizen work for a US company while in Poland. They need to pay Polish income tax. Does the company need to withhold their taxes. Usually companies will have a Polish subsidiary so the employee is working for a Polish company in Poland.

Not to mention what does the company do for the I-9. The emploee has no authorization to work for a US company.

> but it’s not uncommon to be processed via your local consulate, even if you are already living in the US.

It's relatively unusual. 84% of EB1s adjusted rather than apply at consulates in the last quarter USCIS released data for. Maybe it made sense for your circumstances.

https://ohss.dhs.gov/system/files/2025-07/2025_0725_ohss_leg...

What is the point of that?

They might as well mail it to your home. That’s what happens today.

All of my interactions with German immigration have not only happened in Germany, but at an office in the town I was living in at the time: the initial residence permit application, the first renewal, and the renewal where the Beamterin (government employee) helpfully pointed out that as the spouse of a German citizen, I had been resident long enough to go ahead and apply for a Niederlassungserlaubnis (permanent residence; aka, German equivalent of a Green Card).

Six weeks and 255 Euro later, it was in my hand. I have to “renew” it every ten years, but that’s only because the card needs to match my US passport number (and means I don’t have to carry that book around); there’s no interview or document gathering.

In the EU you can apply for a permanent residency card when you're in the country. One of the prerequisites is how long you have been in the country where you're applying. It seems unlikely the other countries have the same policy as the US has now.

UK's 'indefinite leave to remain' (closest thing to a green card) requires that you apply from within the UK. https://www.gov.uk/long-residence/apply-to-settle

You apply for permanent residency in Japan from Japan.

Posting comments in bad faith is not funny, e.g. EU permanent residency requires 5 (or 7) years to have been resident already.

It is false for the UK.

The whole system of US of needing to leave the country to even renew visas is absolutely bizarre and does not have analogues in most other countries (at least EU/UK)

Completely false for Australia.

Australian immigration rules are definitely not like this.

Whenever I see something this obviously false on a forum, it’s always a head scratcher.

Perpetrator of misinformation or victim? Ignorant or malevolent?

Nonsense.

Yes, you are reading too much into things. The ultrawealthy are supporting the current MAGA nonsense because they wish to permanently lock up the massive wealth transfer they've engineered over the past two decades, and the only way to do that is through a combination of nationalism, populism, and fascism.

Every part of the MAGA platform is a smokescreen of outrage, intended as cover for policies that favor the ultrawealthy.

An aware and motivated population legislates and taxes their way out of the establishment and perpetuation of dynasties; this has been done in the past.

to vote you have to be a citizen i think you've forgotten

The cynical take is that with US companies expecting productivity increases via AI, they need to protect the US workers from competition via foreign labor. The current administration was voted in with an anti-immigration mandate so this is consistent. The practical reality is that you are not safe on any visa, it can be terminated arbitrarily by the state department and your recourse is likely expensive and timely.

> Then you can adjust the numbers one way or another.

The numbers need to go up.

China, in particular, has an "elite overproduction" problem. We should be welcoming every English-speaking Chinese STEM degree holder with open arms.

Anyone, from anywhere, with a STEM degree and a job offer from a US company, should be in this country. Period.

America needs to be the leader of the knowledge workforce world. We also need a vibrant and wealthy tax base and consumer base.

If we don't do this, China and other up-and-coming nations will increasingly start to displace us, which puts all of our workers at a disadvantage.

US policy has also nearly completely eliminated the distinction, by making legal immigration close to impossible and ~arresting~ kidnapping people at courthouses who are there for their immigration hearings, then shipping them off to foreign torture camps.

I don't think that is true at all. For example, it was considered a big deal when ICE was rounding up US citizens. It caused a big drop in public trust for ICE.

Nearly half of the workforce of crop farmworkers in the US is made up of "illegal" immigrants. The US food-supply relying on those people has meant that, in practice, immigration law enforcement is deliberately selective and self-serving.

So, the idea of illegal immigration as a vice worth cracking down on and punishing has not been consistently applied by the people publicly condemning it (like this current administration), meaning there is a very real sense in which the distinction between illegal and legal immigration is not real.

Threads like these make me realize how wrong people can be. I understand the complexity and can see how misinformed people are. Makes me wonder what happens in other threads where I know little and just take whatever at face value. Eesh.

It's wickedly complicated, isn't it? I'm distressed by anybody who doesn't change their position from time to time.

I was one of them, and supported the idea of going after illegal immigrants. But now they're coming after me too, a faculty with a PhD, researching AI.

Trump equivocated when it came time to condemn people shouting “The Jews will not replace us” and the Proud Boys. Anyone who thinks it’s just about illegal immigrants is delusional.

Or citizens who look like a immigrants.

How is a scheme systemically racist when >50% of 13M green card holders are from Latin/South America and Caribbean?

You can't be serious.

It's the Stephen Miller types that instituted a policy that throttled GCs by country of birth, independent of that country's population, as a way to achieve racial bias without explicitly talking about race.

Miller's ilk is ascendant in this administration and their Court has blessed their approach to discrimination.

What are people concerned about? If I walk into your house uninvited, that’s trespassing. Is that “solved” by declaring all entry into residences legal?

Some people.

Everybody across the world only wants a certain type of immigrant. The salient difference is whether the definition of "certain type" is petty or not (e.g. based on skin color vs based on qualifications).

> But the majority of undocumented migrants are visa overstayers. They get a legal visa to come to the US, often a visit visa, a student visa or a temporary work permit (eg J1, H2A, H2b) and just don't leave.

Yes, and that's a big part of the motivation for this policy of forcing people on temporary visas to physically leave the US in order to apply for permanent residency. It prevents people who get a temporary visa and plan to overstay that visa and nonetheless apply for some kind of pathway to permanent residency in the US from being able to do that.

Do you have any proof it's "white supremacy and the exploitation of labor under capitalism." ? Why can't it just be xenophobia ?

There's xenophobia almost everywhere: Just look at South Africa this year.

And I will stop assuming that people know what the word fascist actually means

In this case the people brought up in the United States are sacrificing the well fare of their own children to preserve their own fears. I think that is wrong.

I want to keep the US a destination for hard work and smarts and striking out on your own. Don’t shelter your lazy kid, show them the beauty of complexity and mastery. Have them master some difficult skills, whether that’s a second language or botany or math or public speaking or building things. We are all responsible to each other for excellence. Respond to the opportunities for excellence, of what we can build together, dont’t yield to sloth and resentment being satisfied with turning your back on your own potential. The future is awesome and we welcome all who want to contribute! We welcome competition - better to be second best to the best than turning your back and cutting yourself off from the course of history.

Lots of things are wrong with giving people the power to make choices that affect the whole world, while excluding others who are equally or more affected, based on where they happened to be born.

If the logic is that people who are born somewhere else shouldn't have any agency over immigration laws, well, why does someone who lives in some town in my country with a negligible immigrant population get a say in who I and my colleagues can invite to work with us, and who I and my neighbors can invite to live with us?

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If someone says they're not anti immigrant and then turns around to say immigration should be more difficult, there's an obvious logical disconnect in their worldview. It doesn't matter about illegal vs. legal: they want to make immigration more difficult, after claiming they are not against immigration. The comment does not claim there's anything wrong with the policy choice, just that the following policy preference betrays the initial statement as false.

It’s sad that pragmatically adjusting quotas is never the loudest argument in the room. I’m in favor of greatly increasing legal immigration, providing paths for safe work and citizenship (when that’s the goal). I’ll admit that my idea of an ideal system is probably not palatable for many. But if we could start from anywhere near a sane baseline, I’d understand wanting to gradually find sustainable quotas that take all factors into account. I’m done with purity tests and letting perfect be the enemy of good.

I suppose by “all factors” I mean all factors aside from exploitation and xenophobia, but I hope we could at least move the Overton window back that far.

The US's strength is/was in part because of immigration. The best and brightest want to come to the US to go to school and then they often stay for the enormous opportunities only available in the US. I want any immigrant that wants to come to the US given a reasonable path to make that happen.

You are right that the Native Americans were completely misplaced by immigrants, but immigration made the US what it is today and I see no reason it won't continue to make the US a uniquely strong country.

The citizenry would probably fare no worse than with the arrival of the Irish, the Italians, or the Germans. What are you expecting, for the Indians or Chinese to sack DC aux Visigoths?

“Open borders” was pretty much standard across the world prior to World War 1. These tightly controlled immigration policies are, historically speaking, incredibly new.

I think it’s self evident that the U.S. benefited greatly from its mass immigration inflows in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Are you serious?

"Oh, you support immigration? Write an entire nation's immigration policy. Can't/won't do it? You must be a paid shill."

People are allowed to have opinions without regurgitating policy documents on demand.

People coming to live in your area, not your personal home, to work hard for opportunities, are in no material way like pick pockets. Your analogy is so extreme I am tempted to assume you argue in bad faith. The economic success of the United States, its simultaneous growth and flexibility and prosperity is directly caused by our heightened skills to welcome immigrants and make use of their talents and desire for success (compared to other countries with similar demographics). We are awesome at welcoming people into a modern society that values smarts, individual diversity, getting along with neighbors of differing backgrounds, hard work, risk taking, striking out on your own, the NBA, good home cooked food, fast food, and Taylor Swift, and getting them to enjoy these things also.

It is to make a system where people are less incentivized to commit crimes.

This comparison is flawed because there is not legal pickpocketing, but there is legal immigration.

If there was a legal pickpocketing, and someone claimed to only be opposed to illegal pickpocketing, then it would be reasonable to point out that unless they're lying about their intent a solution to preventing illegal pickpocketing would be to make it all legal.

The analogy falls apart because nobody argues that they are "only" opposed to illegal pickpicketing.

If people are opposed to any form of immigration, then they should just admit that, rather than pretend they're only opposed to illegal immigration.

I'm curious what you think "actively encouraged" means here?

Okay so? Just saying "buh buh immigration!" doesn't demonstrate why the immigration is bad, which was the posters point.

Also, the fascism isn't enforcement, lol, and you know that. I hate people who try to be cheeky and dishonest and hope nobody is paying attention.

No, I know you've talked with people on the left. The problem is pouring tens of billions of our taxpayer dollars into ICE while they:

1. Do fuck all to improve the economy

2. Cause violence in our cities for no discernable gain

3. Have already shot and killed numerous American citizens

4. Regularly violate civil liberties because they have zero accountability

I mean, listen: you've won. We have the secret police, we've been deporting people left and right.

Well... is it better? Did it magically fix the economy like dumbass Republicans told you it would? Or is everything still shit?

Same shit as DOGE. "Ohh we just have to cut some stuff! Get those greedy Dems and their welfare state!"

Well, we cut it. Okay where's my check? Right guys?

Oh... or were we just duped. And maybe the reason you, and others, can't admit it is because your ego is bigger than your need for self preservation?

You could keep the vetting system and still increase legal immigration a lot. Those are two separate issues.

A lot of the good is still there -- e.g. the nature, the unusually high level of drive/determination/spirit/openness. At least compared to northern Europe where I'm from.

Unfortunately tilting towards fascism outweighs those.

It was once an open, free country that fought fascism and respected the rule of law?

Arguably it was never perfect and the ugly bits where there, so a lot of that is about an image it projected to the outside world.

You know it is the land of the free when you have to give them access to all your social media accounts at the border. I have heard stories of fellow countrymen being held for weeks without hearing any cause. So yeah, no thanks.

Maybe if you restore the rule of law and have the current, president, supreme court justices and representatives removed in 20 years or so.

Bigotry and xenophobia has brought the downfall of the US empire, for real. It was always more about who believed in it than it was for real. The US had an ugly history that it tried to ignore for the passt hundred years and at some point unsurprisingly it comes back to haunt you.

> They're getting sued and they're losing.

This means nothing if there are no real consequences in terms of change in behaviour. Every country has their own priorities, and looks like the US decided to move on from pax-Americana.

What’s different is in this case is applicants have years of status “runway” and can just sue or wait it out so to speak. I’m betting they will have to walk some of it back

> This administration is doing things that are illegal. They're getting sued and they're losing. Constantly.

Source?

From the article:

"Forcing green card applicants to leave will render many green card applicants’ ineligible because, when they leave the United States, they will trigger the 3- or 10-year bars on receiving an immigrant visa based on accrual of unlawful presence."

Says right in the comment.

This appears to have been downvoted but everything is completely factual in what the parent poster said. I have literally been told by many banks they can't help me due to this.

USA joins the esteemed nation of Liberia in having global taxation.

They're not collecting 85,000 * $100k. I'd guess the majority will be adjustments and therefore circumvent the fee.

Interesting project!

I would say some of the indicators are a little odd.

Some of them are questionable in terms of capturing the spirit of the idea ("violent crime" being the same in the UK and the US is a surprising one to me for example. It's capturing serious assault per 100k, but is then not considering murder as violent crime. You have murder later, but maybe combine / group them?).

Some are confusing because they are not clear politically: everyone wants less violent crime, but I don't know your politics and so have no idea which direction you have weighted net migration and asylum/capita.

> being forced to pay a major portion of all income you make, regardless of where you earn it

If you're a US citizen living abroad you get a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion of $130,000 for 2025 taxes. So if your income was $130k you'd pay zero in US taxes. You potentially also get to deduct housing costs and get a credit for foreign taxes you already paid among other things.

If you're paying a "major portion of your income" as a US citizen living overseas you're probably pretty dang wealthy. Go wipe your tears with your bands of $100 bills.

And yet why do people want this?

To be perfectly clear. The US has a much higher standard of living than the vast majority of countries in the world and people from those countries hope to improve their lives by moving there.

The US has a lower standard of living than basically all OECD countries.

To use a sports analogy, the US is last place on the pro league ladder, while also being first place on the “everyone else” ladder.

That the US is a better place to live than Venezuela or Guatemala or Haiti isn't crossing a very high bar of well developed countries.

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The President confirmed this. They're not sending their best.

Not on high res, widely distributed video. Not, immediately after that video, telling us we didn’t see what we saw.

The game has changed.

ICE aren't police.

Much longer ago than that.

What's new is that we have the deeds captured under multiple angles in full HD, and still around 30% of the country believes the victims were actually the aggressors and deserved to die. They're so indoctrinated that they're able to rationalize away their own eyes' evidence. And they feel comfortable enough in the current environment to try and gaslight you about it.

Sometimes I hate being proven right so easily.

It very obviously was not self defense. People will always lie in these situations and claim self defense. But, driving near an ICE officer and saying mean things is not life threatening.

Maybe ICE are more cowardly than we should expect, and maybe that's something you're okay with. That still doesn't make it self defense, though. No reasonable person would kill in those circumstances.

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If you are referring to Renee Nicole Good, then the video evidence contradicts that entirely. I am not going to discuss that further, I am just pointing out that your assertion is not a known fact and much of ICE's narrative on that killing has been shown to be untrue or incomplete.

He walked away unharmed after he murdered her

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A green card is NOT a visa my friend. Getting a green card is a very involved process.

So why would you need to leave the country, if you couldn't figure out why you don't want to issue one in the year+ it takes to jump through the hoops

Just a fun fact, getting a green card means signing up for ten YEARS of tax liabilities in the US. And those 10 years start, AFTER you relinquished it...

The equivalent of greencard in most countries (permanent residency) usually requires that you're in the country, not outside, and the process is heavily reliant on you being present in country and able to show history of legal (temporary) residence.

I think the biggest question the US needs to ask itself is do we want to be normal like most countries or better?

This is how it has been in the US too. You have to go to an embassy abroad to get a new visa, renew, change status etc. (There are exceptions)

As I recall, we had to drive to the US border and turn around to "enter Canada" to process our landed immigrant letters. That was a while ago, so it's possible that there is more involved now... Was curious as they asked about our stuff and car(s), and we pointed out "at home, in Canada" which got a smile.

Indeed, but there are counterexamples as well. In the UAE you enter as a tourist and get a resident visa while you're there. They take away your passport for at least a couple of weeks so you can't leave either.

It is false. It is not the case for UK and several EU countries at the very least

is that normal? in UK you can extend a visa or apply for ILR without leaving the country.

Sorry but this is just patently untrue. Are you American? Because in my experience, most Americans just don't realize how arbitrary and capricious the US immigration system is.

Pick any other developed country and the process is generally fairly simple. With some you can just apply for a temporary work visa (possibly without a job) or just apply to immigrate. If you stay in many places long enough on a temporary visa you pretty much get residency and ultimately citizenship.

Beyond what's possible, the time frames for doing anything with US immigration is ridiculously long. Like if you, as a US citizen marry someone overseas it can take upwards of 4 years to get a green card for your spouse and they won't be able to visit the US at all in that time. Why? Because filing a marriage petition means you've shown "immigrant intent" so you'll never get a visit visa (B1/B2) again. Also, the president may well just ban your country from getting any visa. 75 countries are currently on that list.

It's also incredibly easy to make a mistake at some point in the process and that may end up getting an approvable case denied or, worse, you end up with an improvidently granted benefit that cannot be repaired, even if it was an honest mistake.

Sure, but AFAIK a green card is more like indefinate leave to remain: it's not a visa as such, but a thing you can apply for after you have already lived in the country for some amount of time (on a visa of some other form, generally one which allows you to legally stay for the required time in the country) which gives the right to stay permanently. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to require leaving the country to apply first.

Note - I immigrated to Ireland from the US and went through the visa process (including huddling in the cold in January at 4 AM at burgh quay, and years later, writing a scraper for their insanely bad appointment system that managed to actually be worse than huddling in the cold)

It's pretty normal not to be able to look for work on a tourist visa in most countries - are you suggesting this is unusual? As far as spouses, they used to have an incredibly asinine system where they told you your spouse _could_ work, without sponsorship, if they got a special form, but getting this form was de facto impossible. It was a very Irish approach, in retrospect. The campaign to fix this was, eventually, successful. (https://reformstamp3.wixsite.com/home)

How is this the same? You can't apply for a green card on a holiday/tourist/non-working visa. You have to be already in the country for many years before you can do that.

I looked it up, and we were required to complete form I-864 "Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA". My wife, her grandmother, and her grandfather all needed to complete one, and when considered together, prove that they earned 125% of the HHS poverty guidelines. As my wife didn't have provable income (we were moving together), we needed to dig into their social security income and complete the forms. I remember feeling sad that I needed to ask for such personal information from them.

My salary in the UK was many multiples of this guideline, but _earning potential_ is not considered. Pragmatism is not really a service offered by USCIS, it's too political. To be on-topic: this move will disincentivize smart but not-yet-wealthy people from immigrating to the "land of opportunity". It was already harder than it had to be.

How recently? As of about 2010, it was very much still there. I understand that is 16 years ago.

It has always existed, but how strictly it’s interpreted (i.e., just cash welfare, or also Medicaid, SNAP, and other means-tested benefits) has shifted between administrations. If you applied during Biden’s administration, I could believe the public charge rule was applied very laxly, particularly because it’s rare to get direct cash welfare in the US these days, and even less for an extended period.

Given the opportunity, at the time, I would have happily taken steps to prove my presence would be of benefit. Instead, I had to spend my time asking family to give me their pension statements.

Later, I was recognized for that potential benefit. Last December, I became a citizen.

Green Cards aren't citizenship.

Wish granted: You are no longer a citizen because you never "proved you were beneficial". Please remit $100,000 to the Citizenship Payment Service immediately to avoid being downgraded to serfdom. /s

Framing it that way is backwards and anti-democratic. Democratic citizenship is something the government "owes" you because it is imposing control on your life. It is not some kind of magnanimous gift of club membership, you already deserved to have a say in what's being done to you.

That's why most Americans (and their children) have never once been required to "prove" that they are "beneficial", and it's why people the government is controlling in jails are still citizens rather than objects.

Trump, early 2017. I'm aware there was some attempt by the Trump admin to change "public charge" terminology in late 2018.

Whoah. I never had that bit LOL. You got special treatment :) They did an eye test and made me get some vaccination records from when I was a kid.

The craziest bit I found was the GC interview where they test your spousal relationship. Expected questions like "What side of the bed do you sleep on?", "Who takes out the garbage?" -- instead they spent 30 minutes interrogating my wife about the military base she was born on and spent the first 6 months of her life at ("Who was the commanding officer at the time?"). It was like something out of a KGB script.

Most people come here for the economic and professional opportunities. I imagine that very few people move to the United States for the lifestyle.

Where else would people get opportunities that could match the United States? I can't think of any country that would even come close.

Ehhhhhh I like Europe, a lot, but when you're in you're 20's or 30's and looking at $300k in SF or €80k in Paris (and better access to investment products and lower taxes in the US to boot), suddenly clocking off at 16:00 on Fridays doesn't seem as nice as being able to retire in your 40's.

> Or you can simply move to a country that actually apreciates you and doesnt treat you like unwanted subhuman garbage. We have few in Europe, with QoL and happiness higher than US average.

Please don't. Europe has enough ethnic tensions. At least the US is built to be an ethnic melting pot. It's much better to go there.

Sorry, which part of my personal experiences was nonsense? Immigration is hard, and yes, I'm aware of challenges in the UK as I moved my spouse over there in 2014. Do you have an experience with immigration that you can speak to?

Is the goal here to be the same as others or to be better than others? The US immigration system is far from great at the best of times, but it's becoming worse over time.

Did you just pick other generally racist countries with unfriendly immigration policies to prove that all other countries have such systems?

It's a two tier system where the best outcome appears to be to simply break the law completely and illegally.

> This policy is some attempt to address flows of quasi-legal immigration.

Is it though? This administration doesn't exactly have a track record of decisions based on carefully thought out policy implications.

> Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives?

I think the two are often linked.

> I don't know if that's necessary to be said, because who thinks that?

Effective January 21, 2026, the Department of State paused all visa issuance to immigrant visa applicants who are nationals of seventy-five countries. The overwhelming majority of the affected countries are not predominantly white and are not European.

> have migrated to improve their lives, not to altruistically benefit a foreign country

These are not mutually exclusive. I want a better life, and I also have career ambition and skills that I'm willing to deploy in a place that will give me a better life in return.

This policy is a further extension of this administration’s public, explicit and frequently repeated goal of ethnic cleansing. Acting like this is a rational policy response to any real problem is ridiculous.

> Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives?

People come to improve their lives.

Their employers hire them to improve their lives.

Both end up better off!

> In practice that means that when you enter US you cannot be planning to apply for immigrant visa.

You are correct about this.

> H1B is also non-immigrant visa, but it is dual intent visa meaning it doesn't have that requirement

You're incorrect about this. The concept of "dual intent" doesn't exist in the Immigration and Naturalization Act. It was created by executive fiat. H1Bs, like other non-immigrant visas, still requires non-immigrant intent. It's different only that it has two carve-outs:

Subsection (b) excludes H1Bs from the "presumption" of immigrant intent that applies to other categories of aliens. Subsection (h) provides that applying for permanent residency "shall not constitute evidence of an intention to abandon a foreign residence" for H1Bs.

So H1Bs must still have non-immigrant intent. It's just that they are carved out of certain presumptions that would automatically establish immigrant intent, which would lead to denial of their visa. It gives the executive flexibility to essentially look the other way when an H1B applies for a green card. But it doesn't confer any legal rights* onto the H1B. The administration can at any time decide that you actually have immigrant intent and yank your visa.

> evidence of how skilled immigrants are immensely beneficial to the US economy.

That's irrelevant. "Justice" means following the rules. Congress gets to decide the immigration laws. Congress has never created a real system for skilled permanent immigrants. The term "H1B" actually comes from 8 USC 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(B).

Subsection (a)(15) literally defines the term "immigrant" to exclude people in the subsequent subsections, including (H)(i)(b). Subsection (a)(15)(H)(i)(b) then reiterates that the category is for someone "who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform services." Congress didn't hide the ball.

It's just an example of how the immigration laws have been a bait-and-switch for decades: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...

Is that the same line you take with people who argue that immigrants are a net drain on society and live off welfare?

Uncle Sam likes tax payers.

I believe the current administration, in general, appreciates those with $$.

https://www.trumpcard.gov/

Well, that’s the main talking point when it comes to immigrants, isn’t it?

When you say world, do you also include the Middle East and South America and various Asian countries that were invaded, bombed, or couped by America?

As a non-American who has to live in a world that's deeply affected by the schizophrenic convulsions of your current government, I hope you stay in the USA and work on fixing your mess.

> The US is an extreme outlier in accepting migrants.

The US is currently at a recent peak of approx 15% immigrants, much as it was in the 1860-1920 period.

This is less extreme than, say, Australia at 25% population born overseas.

I’d be fine with America not wanting the world to feel “entitled to” it, if at the same time they’d stop feeling entitled to the rest of the world themselves.

Vietnam. Middle America. Afghanistan. Iraq. Greenland. Venezuela. Iran. Now Cuba.

Stop it.

I don't think the US or the EU has specific problems with "white nationalism" more than any other country.

You can't migrate to Arab countries easily if you come from sub-Saharan Africa. Is that "Arab nationalism"? No, it's just countries enforcing their borders and immigration policy. Effectively what pretty much every country does. You can't immigrate easily to most countries, it's the norm, not the exception.

I was in high school in the 90s in the deep south and was taught about the horrors of slavery. Has that changed? Not disagreeing about reconstruction. It established a pattern of letting conservatives get away with their malfeasance and “let’s just get along” politically instead of extracting a real price for crime and destructive behavior.

If you apply for immigration status and are rejected, sure you can apply for immigration again if you gain much better qualifications. I haven’t seen many successful examples though.

People are deemed to have immigration intent for small things like they don’t have enough ties to their country of residence. An application for immigration is definite proof you had intent to immigrate. You can wait like ten years, but time doesn’t work in your favor (immigration gets harder every year, people get older and handcuffed elsewhere…).

I mean this in the kindest possible way while still being critical: I really wish people would stop making definitive statements about things that, I'm sorry to say, they don't understand. This is just wrong. The end result is absolutely not the same, for multiple reasons:

1. Decisions by consular officials largely can't be challenged (with some exceptions). Decisions by USCIS can be challenged in immigration court and/or federal court, depending on your case;

2. Thanks to Trump v. Hawaii, the president has the broad power to ban the granting of visas to people overseas. There's currently a ban on 39 countries. That cannot be challenged. It can be challenged in the US;

3. When you apply for an immigration benefit in the US, the USCIS field office that deals with it is determined by where you live. It used to be the case that if you were outside the US, you could get an embassy appointment in the country you were residing in. This administration changed that such that you can only use the embassy in your country of birth/citizenship. So, if you're a Kenyan citizen living and working in France, you have to go back to Kenya for your consular interview. That might take wait times for getting an interview from 1-2 months to 1-2 years, depending on the embassy. It's also a huge hassle and expensive, possibly;

4. The GP is correct here. When you apply for any immigrant visa, meaning you or a spouse, sibling, parent, child or employer files an I130/I140 for you, you've demonstrated what's called "immigrant intent". That means that for people from many countries they are unlikely to ever get a nonimmigrant visa ever again. USCIS thinks you're tryign to sneak into the US to adjust status rather than consular processing. They also think if you enter the US, you won't leave. Obviously citizens of Norway are treated differently to citizens of Nigeria. I'll let you ponder why;

5. If you accrue unlawful presence in the US (for which the rules are complicated), you may get a 3 or 10 year bar on returning to the US. In addition, because you have overstayed a visa (or have entered without inspection), you may simply not ever get another visa again anyway. It's unclear from this memo if the 3/10 year bars will apply here. We won't know until we see how it's implemented;

6. Certain people may be in limbo because they don't have the option to leave to consular process. I'm mainly thinking of people who have made an asylum claim. There are people who have filed for asylum in 2015 who don't have a ruling on that case yet. 11 years is a long time. They might meet someone and get married and then seek to adjust. This is a complicated process that comes with its own perils but generally they adjust status and then withdraw their asylum case or, in some cases, seek cancellation of removal from immigration court. Do they have to leave? They may not have travel documents. They can't really go back to their home country. This may create a situation where they can't adjust and they can't leave so they're in limbo. Also, if the asylum office decides your asylum case was "frivolous", you may have a permanent bar on ever receiving an immigration benefit. That's much more difficult if not impossible to challenge overseas;

7. What makes you inadmissibile isn't necessarily serious. It can be a simple mistake. For example, if you marry a US citizen then working without authorization is forgiven (mostly; it's complicated) but you have to be really careful how you answer questions on the forms and to officers. So you might answer "no" the I485 question about working without authorization even though you did a few Ubers 7 years ago, which is forgiven, but you've now made a false claim and that may make you inadmissible needing a waiver. A good lawyer will argue that it wasn't "material" but this USCIS much more than any previouis is having a stricter interpretation of any of this;

8. As another example, "crimes", particularly "aggravated" crimes or crimes of "moral terpitude" can make you inadmissible. But what are those? There are guidelines but there's some grey areas where USCIS has discretion. For example, being convicted of a crime with a potential sentence of more than 365 days will make you inadmissible. But sentencing guidelines can be whack such that if you speed as a 16 year old, you might get charged with something and, not knowing any better, get offered a deal for probation on a crime of reckless driving that can technically be up to 2 years of jail time by the sentencing guidelines. Well, guess what? You're now guilty of an aggravated crime and can not only have your green card denied, you can be denaturalized and deported. No, this isn't a made up example.

IANAL but I know what I know and, more importantly, I know what I don't know, which is a lot. But what's particularly frustrating to me is the people who have no idea what they don't know. The above just scratches the surface.

I should have been more precise, yes. But the majority of non-immigrant visas are single intent. H1B requires 100K and if you can’t first enter to see people and attend interviews, chances seem slim in these circumstances, if H1B program is not altogether scrapped.

US consulates have halted green card processing in 75 countries.

IANAL. If you adjust status in the US you can also apply for AP/EAD if your original visa/legal status expires. You can't do that if you opt for consular processing.

Nothing new there, but under the new rules the former is no longer an option and you'd need to leave immediately. On the plus side consular processing tends to be cheaper and often faster (AOS and all the approvals vs the consular processing fee and a plane ticket).

What is the typical wait time for appointments when going to consular processing route? My brief searches say anywhere from 2-9 months. 60-90 day NVC review phase, 60-120 day interview scheduling, and then 1-2 weeks once you have the interview. Are you saying that the 120-210 day wait time can happen while you're still in the US?

It will help would-be immigrants understand that the US does not want them and that it would be a mistake to invest time and energy trying to build a future in a country that hates them and can nuke their lives at the drop of a hat. It will help other countries that are not the US retain their talent and build up their own industries. A greater diversity in distribution of talent and industry across the world is a more resilient system.

They mean good for everyone NOT the US. Because now say, Germany or France, or where ever, come off as a better place to immigrate, so other countries can build stronger more competitice businesses.

This move, like everything the MAGA administration does, will only weaken the US.

Even better for other countries, anyone the US produces who isn't a raging idiot, also are more likely to want to immigrate from the US.

It could be good for anyone country that's not the US (despite our hubris, we're not actually the center of the universe). But for the US, a country built on immigrants ands immigration, probably not so much. We fucked around, we found out.

Well, we're continuing to find out. We haven't exactly scraped rocked bottom yet.

I think the parent is saying it's good because immigrants will go elsewhere and the US will continue to decline. Which will be good for humanity.

I think it's sarcasm

In many cases a talented/smart person will bring little to zero value to a country with ossified institutions, but huge value to one with the right systems in place to build value.

The way it works is that the origin country is worse off when people leave, but in general immigrants are much better off for moving, and it's not even close.

A big argument for letting people emigrate is that they owe no real debt to the county where they are born, or the city, or anything like that. They aren't selfs owned by a nobleman. If moving increases their personal lot, why should we stop them?

Yes exactly. One country sucking up all the best talent is not good for the world, its a single point of failure.

The problem with this thinking is assuming that countries are equivalent in terms of opportunity and life.

India does not have the same opportunities that America does to have a good and successful life. This isn’t just due to the country being relatively poor but due to structural issues along with corruption. Then there are other issues too. Environmental issues. Too many issues to list.

It’s disingenuous to suggest that a families or individuals should stay behind to change this. Also isnt it a loss for everyone? If smart people come to America and take advantage of opportunities and accomplish things that help many people what good is it to say no to this. That they must stay in the home country and inevitably not accomplish as much due to all these issues. Even if Elon Musk and Jensen Huang had stayed in their home countries they certainly could not have accomplished the same amount they did in America. Both South Africa and Taiwan in that period lacked the opportunities.

Also what is the rationale behind an American saying to people not to come to America and improve it but to stay back? Individual Indians aren’t any different from individual Americans beyond their accent. The children of these immigrants are indistinguishable from Americans who have been here for generations (aside from skin color). I really don’t understand why Americans wouldn’t want the brain gain from having smart people come here. Also if a surgeon is operating on you would you care what skin color or accent they had? Doesn’t make sense to me.

> Isn’t it better for the smart people in India to stay there and make India richer, instead of coming to the U.S. to make billionaires here richer?

An Indian’s greatest accomplishment in life is leaving India.

This ^ If it is secularism and religion in some countries, it is language and ethinicity in some other, and immigration and racism in America. Depends on the timing, and the need for it, politicians use it to their advantage.

The evidence for the need of immigration reform was always weak and, frankly, basically non-existent.

What happened was white people saw brown people coming in and got uncomfortable. That's it. The rest was just "fill in the blank" reasoning. Something something medicare, something something housing... eh yeah that's good enough we need immigration reform!

But that's been happening in the US for many generations now. That's just how the US works; we get a lot of immigrants and they become US citizens. If not them, then their kids. Yeah, welcome to America.

can we not call a spade a spade anymore? what part of cruelly cancelling green card applications fits with “give me your tired, your poor?”

If that’s true, things may be slightly better, but I’m also reading this move will take away substantial funding from uscis since it is funded purely based on fees collected with immigration applications. Processing times are already pretty large in a lot of countries. So even with the flexibility, you carry a substantial risk.

Also not a lawyer.

I believe the issue with what you're describing is that if you're on a temporary visa, like a student visa, applying for a green card shows intent of immigration so you cannot return to the US on a student visa.

If you have an H-1B already you may be able to do what you're describing. If you're a recent grad in the US this basically locks you out of trying to get a green card until you've already secured an H-1B.

If you read my full comment:

> don’t know how this will play out for employment based categories

I am only talking about employment based categories if you refer to my original comment. I’d be curious to know what visa categories allow you to file for an employment based greencard without a job?

The dude bankrupted a casino.

For those who're in the US, the courts can stop the government. The ones more at risk are non-citizens who are abroad.

Yes, it looks like H1B workers will have to do this as well. It sounds like it applies to "dreamers" as well even if they have never visited their "home" country before.