Waiting for Green Card? Leave US first, re-enter with an immigrant visa

Key points

• US plans to send those who are waiting for their Green Card back to their home countries.
• Non-immigrant visa versus immigrant visa In a huge move, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services is going to ask individuals who are waiting for their Green Cards to leave the country and wait in their own country.
• The USCIS announced new guidance directing immigration officers to treat the transition from temporary nonimmigrant status to permanent immigrant status under Section 245 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act as a process that should generally take place outside the United States.
• USCIS director Joseph Edlow said that the agency is making sure that there is a distinction between temporary admission and permanent residence and the period in between should be spent in one's own country.The target of this new rule is not illegal aliens but those who come on temporary visas like B1/B2, F1/M1, J1,...