New green card rules are confusing Californians

Trump team walks back directive for green card applicants to first return home

The move follows ‘enormous backlash’ to a May 22 memo from the US Customs and Immigration Services

New green card rules are confusing Californians

Photo via iStock Contradictory statements from the Trump administration about new rules for legal immigration are confusing employers and stoking fear among green card holders, writes CalMatters’ Wendy Fry. In May the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent out a memo that initially directed most temporary visa holders living in the U.S. to return to their home countries to await their green cards. The requirement contradicted a longstanding …

Commentary - 5 things to know about the Trump administration’s new green card policy

Commentary - 5 things to know about the Trump administration’s new green card policy mps-post Sun, 06/07/2026 - 05:00 Image (CalMatters) If the goal was to confuse everyone, the mission was accomplished.Just before Memorial Day, the Trump administration issued a sweeping new policy directive that took aim at legal immigration. It would have required most temporary visa holders and humanitarian parolees living in the U.S. to return to their hom…

Inside Trump’s suddenly softened new green card policy

Photo: Dreamstime In the days following a Trump administration announcement declaring most green card applicants would have to return to their countries of origin, America’s business leaders – including from the tech and artificial intelligence industries – privately warned the White House and other Trump officials that the policy would harm their workforces. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) guidelines announced on May 22 in…

'Stricter' US green card policy: What Filipinos should know

By Joyce Ann L. Rocamora MANILA – The Trump administration is tightening rules for non-immigrant visa holders planning to “adjust status” and obtain their green card while they are in the U.S. — a policy that would require foreigners, including Filipinos to return to their home countries to process their U.S. residency appeal. While the rule is unlikely to impact a “big majority” of Filipinos given that most of them apply from the Philippines th…

DHS Quits Granting Green Cards—Almost Entirely

The policy is a radical expansion of DHS’s “quiet quitting” on legal immigration that has been going on for months.