United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS) announced a new policy memo May 22 stating that individuals seeking a green card must return to their home countries to complete the process. Students who arrive on visas and stay for longer than its validity will be among those most affected.
The USCIS memo describes obtaining a green card, or an “adjustment of status,” as an “extraordinary act of administrative grace,” and a privilege granted by the government rather than a right.
From now on, “a foreigner who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a green card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” USCIS Spokesperson Zach Kahler wrote in an announcement on May 22. “This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes.”
The change, apart from undetermined “extraordinary cases”, is meant to reduce the need to “find and remove” those who remain undocumented after being denied residency.
The USCIS announcement said nonimmigrant residents, such as students, come to the U.S. for a specific purpose and must leave shortly after. However, the Department of Homeland Security has reported that foreign students overstay at much higher rates than any other type of nonimmigrant. In 2016, students “overstayed” more than twice the rate of foreign visitors with visas and eight times more than visa waiver travelers.
Under long-standing practice, students on visas could apply for green cards right in the U.S. without having to uproot their lives, and the same goes for spouses,outstanding professors and researchers which the DHS classifies as priority workers.
The new policy could force people apart with no definite timeline. Green card processing times can take anywhere from several months to several years.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, students are concerned.
“I just find [the change] another way that the current administration is trying to put more blockages in the way of people who want to get here,” Aniruddh Nambudiri, a UW-Madison student, told The Daily Cardinal.
The Trump administration has acted on their Secure the Border program over both Trump’s presidential terms in several ways including “expedited removal” of undocumented citizens, removal of noncitizens to third countries and expansion of enforcement personnel such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In 2025, the administration terminated 26 UW-Madison student and alumni visas and international student enrollment decreased 30%, the university’s lowest point in a decade. This spring, new federal guidelines were placed on highly-specialized H-1B international visas prioritizing higher-paying positions, resulting in more difficulties for employees.
As an international student from India, Nambudiri only goes back once a year due to costs.
“It’s almost a class issue, like [the administration] only wants the 'right' or 'good' [immigrants] but it adds higher costs to an already expensive process,” he said. “It’s hard to immigrate as is and by adding another cost of leaving the country if you are already in the country? I just see it as another way to sort of continue the removal of immigrants from the country.”
Amidst initial reactions, DHS clarified May 29 the USCIS announcement and said it would be up to individual immigration officers to decide whether or not someone needs to go abroad to obtain a green card.
“This was just a reminder to officers of their discretionary authority, which has always existed on a case-by-case basis,” a DHS spokesperson told The New York Times.
UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas told The Cardinal the university will “continue to monitor this situation but won’t have a definitive response until the situation becomes clearer.”
“[The university] needs to help with the costs and process more or actually take a stand. They need to stand by international students in an actual tangible way that’s not just words and that involves helping with the process,” Nambudiri said.
