Trump Calls a 74-Year-Old Law a "Loophole" and Shuts Down Green Cards for Legal Immigrants Already in the US

On May 22, 2026, USCIS announced that it would effectively stop granting green cards to immigrants already in the United States — a process called adjustment of status — except in "extraordinary circumstances." The administration called it closing a "loophole."

This is a lie. It is a provable, documented, on-the-government's-own-website lie.

What adjustment of status actually is

Adjustment of status is the process by which an immigrant physically present in the United States can apply for a green card without leaving the country. It is codified in Section 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1255) and implemented under 8 CFR § 245.

Congress created this process on purpose. It was not an accident, not an oversight, not a loophole. The legislative history is unambiguous:

• 1952: Congress created adjustment of status in the original INA because requiring immigrants to leave the country just to come right back was causing "so much hardship to Americans and their families" — it was illogical, expensive, and served no purpose
• 1960: Congress expanded it (Pub. L. 86-648), removing the requirement that applicants had been admitted as "bona fide nonimmigrants" — broadening access, not restricting it
• 1965, 1976, 1990: Congress continued to expand and refine the provision through multiple amendments

Congress created it, expanded it, refined it, and kept it for 74 years across Republican and Democratic administrations. Every president since Eisenhower has administered it. It is as much a "loophole" as the right to vote.

USCIS's own website says this

The USCIS Policy Manual — the government's own guidance document — Volume 7, Part A, Chapter 1 states:

"Congress created the adjustment of status provisions to enable an alien physically present in the United States to become an LPR without incurring the expense and inconvenience of traveling abroad to obtain an immigrant visa."

The agency calling adjustment of status a "loophole" is contradicted by its own published policy manual, which explicitly says Congress created it intentionally. The lie is on one page of USCIS's website while the truth is on another.

The scale of what they're shutting down

56% of all legal immigrants since 1980 received their green cards through adjustment of status. This is not some obscure workaround used by a handful of people — it is how the majority of legal immigration has worked for over four decades.

The Cato Institute's David Bier reported that USCIS has already slashed green card approvals in half over the past year through quiet administrative slowdowns. This announcement makes the quiet part loud: DHS is effectively ceasing to grant green cards domestically.

There are currently over 1 million pending adjustment of status applications. All of those applicants — people who followed every rule, filed every form, paid every fee — are now being told to leave the country.

Who this actually hits

The people affected are not "illegal immigrants." They are legal immigrants who are in the United States with permission:

• Spouses of U.S. citizens — Americans whose husbands and wives now have to leave the country to come back
• H-1B skilled workers — doctors, engineers, researchers. Congress explicitly created "dual intent" for H-1B holders, allowing them to pursue a green card while working temporarily. USCIS is now overriding that congressional intent.
• Students on academic visas who qualified for employment-based green cards
• Religious workers on R-1 visas
• Refugees and asylees — people who were granted protection because they can't safely go home, who may now be told to go home to apply for permanent status

The cruelest irony: some of these people cannot return home. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan has been closed since August 2021. There is no consular processing available in countries with no functioning embassy. People who were given asylum because their home country would kill them are being told to go back there to fill out paperwork.

The "original intent" lie

USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said: "We're returning to the original intent of the law."

The original intent of the law — as documented in the legislative history, the statute itself, the USCIS Policy Manual, every court that has interpreted it, and 74 years of continuous administrative practice — is the exact opposite of what USCIS is now doing. Congress created Section 245 specifically because requiring people to leave was harmful and unnecessary. The "original intent" was to let people stay.

This is the immigration equivalent of shutting down the Post Office and saying you're "returning to the original intent" of the Constitution's postal clause. The law is right there. It says the opposite of what you claim.

The legal exposure

Immigration lawyers and the American Immigration Lawyers Association warned that USCIS faces litigation on multiple fronts:

• The policy change is so sweeping it likely requires notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act — not a memo
• It contradicts the express statutory text of INA Section 245, which grants adjustment of status as a right to eligible applicants
• It overrides congressional dual-intent provisions for H-1B and L-1 visa holders
• It may violate due process for the 1 million+ applicants with pending cases

The administration is not "closing a loophole." It is unilaterally repealing a 74-year-old law that Congress passed, expanded, and reaffirmed across a dozen administrations — by memo, without legislation, without rulemaking, and against the plain text of the statute. They are calling a law a loophole because they don't have the votes to repeal it.