President Trump continues to make good on one of his main 2024 campaign promises, much to the chagrin of the Domestic Terrorist Party.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will start enforcing a “long-standing” law requiring green card applicants to stay in their home country until their application is approved, except in “extraordinary circumstances.”
Previously, the rule was not enforced consistently, allowing numerous applicants to stay in the United States while their green card applications were under review:
An alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply. This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes. The era of abusing our nation’s immigration system is over.
An alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply.
This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes.
The era of abusing our nation’s immigration system is over. https://t.co/ofyEYGPDLC
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) May 22, 2026
“We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly. From now on, an alien 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 Spokesman Zach Kahler said in a statement.
“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes. When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency,” he added.
Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over.
Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process. Following the law allows the majority of these cases to be handled by the State Department at U.S. consular offices abroad and frees up limited USCIS resources to focus on processing other cases that fall under its purview, including visas for victims of violent crime and human trafficking, naturalization applications, and other priorities.
The law was written this way for a reason, and despite the fact that it has been ignored for years, following it will help make our system fairer and more efficient.
For years, Washington politicians and open-borders activists exploited this loophole to quietly transform America’s immigration system into a revolving door.
The law was rarely enforced, allowing countless non-citizens to remain in the United States indefinitely while waiting for approvals that often dragged on for years. Temporary visa holders — including H-1B workers, foreign students, and tourists — were effectively able to slide from short-term status into the permanent residency pipeline without ever leaving the country.
Critics have long called it exactly what it is: a backdoor immigration system disguised as bureaucracy.
Instead of enforcing clear limits, the federal government allowed the system to morph into a loophole factory where temporary entry increasingly became de facto permanent settlement.
That’s precisely why the Trump administration has moved aggressively to tighten enforcement — not just against illegal immigration, but against abuse of legal immigration channels as well.
The administration’s position is straightforward: citizenship and permanent residency are privileges, not automatic entitlements. And if the United States is going to maintain a functioning immigration system at all, the rules actually have to mean something.
