World Relief Laments Cruel, Anti-Family Immigration Policy Change

New USCIS Memo Largely Restricting Adjustment of Status for Individuals Lawfully Admitted to the United States Is Latest in String of Policies Restricting Legal Immigration

Contact: Lauren Rasmussen, media@wr.org, 802.310.4255

BALTIMORE, Md. – Today, the United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a shocking memo, largely halting the longstanding practice of allowing non-citizens who entered the United States lawfully and now qualify under U.S. law for Lawful Permanent Resident status to “adjust status” within the United States. These individuals, many of whom are sponsored by U.S. citizen spouses, parents, or adult children, will instead need to return to their countries of origin to endure a months- or years-long process abroad.  

World Relief, a global Christian humanitarian organization that provides immigration legal services in locations throughout the United States, laments this alarming new policy, the latest of several administrative changes that restrict legal immigration and separate families.  

“This is the latest step in an effort to systematically dismantle legal immigration, and it will have devastating consequences on families. Our faith as Christians teaches us that God established the family unit and that what God has joined together, no one should separate. This policy, impacting individuals who meet the legal requirements for a green card, will force apart husbands from wives and children from their parents. There’s simply no compelling reason for this cruel, anti-family policy change, and I hope and pray it will be reversed, whether by administrative reconsideration, congressional action or the courts,” commented Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief.  

Adjustment of Status is a longstanding element of U.S. immigration policy that allows individuals who entered the country lawfully (such as with a temporary work visa, a student visa, humanitarian parole or a tourist visa) who become eligible for a green card to process that application for Lawful Permanent Resident status within the United States. Most often this happens because they married a U.S. citizen or have another U.S. citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident family sponsor. In the last quarter of FY 2025, roughly 73 percent of all approved Adjustments of Status were based on family sponsorship.  

This new memo makes clear that because Adjustment of Status is a discretionary benefit, USCIS will allow Adjustments of Status only in “exceptional” circumstances. Most families who previously could have stayed together during months or years of bureaucratic processing will apparently now be forced to separate, with the non-citizen family member leaving the United States and living abroad while awaiting processing, away from U.S. citizen family members who often cannot leave due to employment or caregiving responsibilities. 

The effects of this dramatic new policy are further exacerbated by a total ban on consular processing of immigrant visas for 75 countries around the world, implemented in January by the U.S. State Department. If families are told that the non-citizen family member must return to his or her country of origin to process their immigrant visa, but immigrant visas are not being processed there, it’s a Catch-22. These policies will effectively create an indefinite separation of families.  

“This is the latest in a series of immigration policies that will tear families apart,” said Matthew Soerens, World Relief’s vice president of advocacy and policy. “It’s also the latest policy dramatically rolling back legal immigration, despite broad evidence that most Americans believe legal immigration is beneficial.” According to recent polling, 83 percent of all Americans believe that legal immigration contributes to economic growth. Among evangelical Christians, 86 percent say legal immigration has been helpful to the U.S., and 90 percent believe that U.S. immigration policies should “protect the unity of the immediate family.” 

Earlier this month, World Relief partnered with the National Association of Evangelicals to release a report, “Joined Together, Torn Apart,” that sought to quantify the likely effects of previously announced immigration policies on mixed-status families, where at least one family member is a U.S. citizen but another is a non-citizen. The report found that, by 2029: 

• 910,000 U.S. citizen children would be separated from one or both parents by detention and deportation policies 

• 272,000 U.S. citizens will be separated from their spouses by detention and deportation policies 

• 150,000 spouses and children currently abroad in countries affected by immigrant visa travel bans will remain separated 

This new policy will add to this family separation effect, forcing families who are currently together – where all members of the family unit were born in or entered the country lawfully – to separate in order to abide by the law. For those from the 75 countries on the immigrant visa ban, most of which are in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, that separation could be indefinite.  

World Relief urges the administration to reconsider this needless change and urges Congress to clarify the law as necessary to ensure that families seeking to abide by the law are able to do so without separation.  

World Relief advises immigrants and their families who may be affected by this policy change to consult with an experienced immigration attorney or with an organization recognized by the Department of Justice to provide immigration legal guidance, including many local offices of World Relief and many local church partners.