Immigrants looking for green cards through marriage could be vulnerable to deportation, according to a new Trump administration policy.
Federal immigration authorities can begin removal procedures for immigrants who lack legal status and request to become residents through a spouse, according to the new orientation issued by citizenship and immigration services of the United States (USCIS) on Monday. The policy, which came into effect immediately, also applies to immigrants seeking legal permanent residence through other family members.
Immigrants and the spouse or the family that sponsor them “must be aware that a family request does not match the immigration status or elimination,” said the USCIS policy manual. USCIS said in a statement to NBC News that the change applies to both pending applications and those submitted from August 1 or later.
The policy is widely directed to an important route for some immigrants looking for green cards, immigration policy and legal experts to NBC News.
“This is one of the most important roads that people have to adapt to the legal permanent status in the United States,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic of the Faculty of Law of Columbia.
The new policy is very wide and seems to train USCIS to begin elimination procedures for a green card applicant “at any time of the process,” he said, adding that waiting times for a green card can vary greatly depending on multiple factors, including where the application and the type of family relationship that the immigrant has in its application was presented.
Almost 520,000 I-30 requests, the first step in the process to obtain the United States residence through the spouse or family, were presented by family members in the name of immigrants in the first six months of 2025, according to an NBC news analysis of USCIS data.
As of June, there were more than 2.4 million pending requests from the I-130, according to USCIS data. Of these, more than 1.9 million have been pending for more than six months, also for USCIS data. It is not clear how many of those looking for green cards include immigrants who lack legal status or lose their status during the process.
Mukherjee said that previously “nobody expected to be put in the immigration court” during this process, unless there was a serious problem such as violating criminal law, and added that change could “instill fear in immigrant families, even those who are doing everything right.”
Uscis said in his statement that the new policy “is dedicated to guaranteeing integrity into the United States immigration system through better detection and research to deter, detect and interrupt immigration fraud and threats to our national security and public security.”
The agency said in his statement that the updates of the policy manual “increase the integrity of the benefits and introduced opportunities for detection and research of research by providing management on the problems of award and decision, even when USCIS requires an interview in person.”
“Visa’s requests for fraudulent, frivolous or otherwise non -meritorious erosion eroding in family affairs to the legal resident state (LPR) and undermine the immigration system in the United States. USCIS.
Julia Gelatt, associate director of the US Immigration Policy Program. In the Institute of Migration Policy, he said that the change of policy was in line with the Mass Deportation Agenda of the Administration.
“We are seeing the Trump administration send a message in all ways in which you can unauthorized immigrants who should consider giving up their lives in the United States and return to their countries of origin,” he said.
Politics will not only affect immigrants who entered the country illegally and now look for green card status as a means to stay, he said. In addition, people whose legal visas expire while waiting for a decision on green cards, dreamers and hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose legal status is in danger after the Trump administration moved to cancel the temporary legal routes under the Biden administration could also be affected.
“There are many people who are losing status, and this is removing one of the roads that could have had to remain in the United States,” Gelatt said.
Mukherjee said that, although the Trump administration remains to be seen how aggressively this policy will be applied, it will be “a maritime change in the application of immigration and will deter people who should be eligible to adapt to the legal permanent state of doing so.”
