WASHINGTON — In a surprise overhaul of longstanding immigration policy, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that foreigners already living legally in the United States will now be required to leave the country before asking for permission to stay in it.
The newly issued directive immediately ends the decades-old practice of "adjustment of status," a bureaucratic oversight that previously permitted H-1B tech workers, international students, and corporate transferees to submit their permanent residency applications from the same physical landmass where they currently reside, work, and pay taxes.
Under the revised framework, applicants will be mandated to terminate their leases, sell their vehicles, and relocate to their country of origin for the 14 to 36 months it takes U.S. consular offices to process their paperwork, ensuring that the legal immigration system incorporates a mandatory period of forced geographic exile.
It is fundamentally unfair to those waiting overseas that a visa holder already contributing to the American economy is not required to uproot their entire life and lose their job just to submit a web form.
The 400-page rule change, published in the Federal Register on Friday morning, explicitly states that the administration is prioritizing "procedural integrity and border equity" over the continuous employment of the applicants.
According to an internal memo circulated by DHS leadership, the policy is expected to successfully eliminate the domestic immigration backlog by ensuring that applicants who are forced to resign from their U.S. jobs due to the mandatory multi-year absence will no longer qualify for the employment-based green cards they originally left the country to apply for.