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USCIS dropped a new Green Card rule asking those waiting for Green Card to leave the country and go back to their own countries.
The new memo by the USCIS that every migrant has to leave the US when they wait for their Green Card triggered a massive upheaval as experts decoded what the new rules mean and what visa holders should do.
The agency said a visa holder who is in the US temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply.
The logic is: a visa holder comes to the US temporarily, and a Green Card is for permanent residents, and so there is a clash of intent, and hence people on a visa should not be allowed to stay in the US while they wait for the Green Card.
Top scientists will stop work and leave the country, asks Russian founder
Russian-origin VC and founder Nick Davidov condemned the move and asked whether this means that every foreign-born scientist will have to stop their work and leave the country and wait for Green Card in their countries of origin.
"So everyone on a O1 or H1B visa would have to stop working legally in the US, go back to their country and wait for years of backlog? This includes top scientists in our universities, founders of billion dollar companies.
And if we look at individual countries it becomes even more bs. Indians would have to wait decades. Russians don’t have anywhere to go (there is no US embassy in Russia, hello?). This is the worst imaginable way to disrupt important work for the country and pretend you’re fighting some loophole," Davidov said.
Immigration specialist James Blunt said under this new policy even Melania Trump could have been asked to go back to her country and wait for her Green Card. "USCIS is supposed to be the plumber that maintains the pipes of our immigration system. Instead, these people are taking a sledgehammer to the entire water line," Blunt added.
Is H-1B exempt from the rule?
No, H-1B is not exempt from the new rule. H-1B visa is considered a dual-intent non-immigrant visa.
The dual-intent part means it is a temporary visa but a person on an H-1B visa can intend to immigrate permanently. But this does not make the H-1B visa holders exempt from the 'go back to your country' rule. The USCIS, in its memo, mentioned that the adjustment of status is "extraordinary relief" and "Maintaining lawful status in a dual intent category is not sufficient, on its own, to warrant a favorable exercise of discretion.
"Immigration attorneys said this rule will definitely be legally challenged as there is some vagueness in the memo and this is not what Congress wanted when they started the H-1B visa pogram.
Immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta said USCIS is inventing new rules to deprive non-citizens from getting Green Cards. "While adjustment of status is discretionary under INA 245 it has never been interpreted as an extraordinary form of relief and USCIS is inventing a new standard to deprive noncitizens from getting green cards in the US," Mehta said.Adjustment of status is the process of applying for a Green Card from inside the US instead of leaving the country for a visa interview.
