The Department of Homeland Security just changed internal policy manuals for the USCIS officers,
making it more difficult and complicated to get a green card, and ultimately, US citizenship.
Watch this video, and I'll tell you all about these changes, and what you have to know.
USCIS recently updated its internal policy guidelines when it comes to Adjustment of Status,
specifically green cards that are filed inside the United States. The bottom line is,
it's going to get more complicated and confusing to get a green card inside the United States,
and ultimately, getting that citizenship as well. So, essentially,
if you read this policy manual, they're changing the focus. This administration that is ending very
soon, is changing the focus. And they're saying that it's more important for national security
and public safety, as opposed to family unity, which was the guiding factor of our immigration
system for the past 50 years. And with this in mind, the entire process of adjusting status,
and how USCIS officer is going to look at it is changing. They're going to have a list of
factors. We're going to go through these factors in a few minutes. And if you stick to the end,
I'm actually going to list those factors in a screenshot on the screen so you can see them.
Those are the factors that USCIS officers are going to be going through as they adjudicate
Adjustment of Status cases for green cards inside the United States. Under the old standard, if an
officer doesn't see any bad factors, any negative factors, they should exercise their discretion to
approve a green card application. Under the new standard, the officer is going to focus on how
to deny more applications based on particular criteria. So, the purpose is not to find a way
to approve more cases. On the contrary, they're looking for ways to deny more green card cases.
Once again, another attempt by this administration to shut down immigration in their final weeks.
So, let's take a look at these factors so you can understand what we're going to be looking for,
and how to process these Adjustments of Status in such a way that your cases won't be denied.
If you look at the list, the list is divided into positive factors and negative factors.
Positive factors, they're meeting the eligibility requirements. And negative factors are not meeting
the eligibility requirements. So, we've got factors like family and community ties. Positive
factors, family ties in the United States, and the closeness to the underlining relationship.
Negative factors, absence of close family community and residence ties. I mean, once again,
these are very, very general negative factors. What does it mean that absent family ties? Does
the officer have so much discretion right now to make that decision? That's pretty scary. Family,
community ties, hardship to the applicant, length of lawful residence in the United States, these
are all positive factors. Another factor they're looking at is immigration status and history.
Positive factors, compliance with immigration laws, approved communitarian-based immigrant or
non-immigrant petitions. What are the negative factors? Violation of immigration laws,
current or previous instances of fraud, unexpected exclusion, deportation, or removal orders. So,
once again, if these are negative factors, this gives the officers so much power to say, “Oh,
I think you lied to me or I think you overstayed. And now, because of that, I'll be able to deny
your application” where an overstay could be waived, and most Adjustment of Status cases based
on marriage. So, we don't know how far they'll take it. But the fact that we have this, this
list of negative, positive factors is a little bit scary. And I'm really worried about how they'll be
processing these adjustments in the near future. Other factors considered, business and employment
skills, a person has property investment, money, education. And negative factors, history of
unemployment, unauthorized employment, employment for income from illegal activity or sources.
Once again, such a big discretion, it just opens the floodgates to
so much power that this office is now going to have. It’s really concerning to me.
And finally, we have community standing and moral character, respect for the law, honorable service
in the army, compliance with laws, negative moral depravity or criminal tendencies, lack of
reformation of character, public safety, failure to meet tax obligations, failure to pay child
support. Now, we have these factors that were not really effective before but all these things could
lead to your green card denial if you don't pay your child support, if you're late on your taxes.
It just gives the officer so much discretion. And I can see so many people are going to be denied
green cards between now and January 20. When we have our new administration, by then this all
is going to be reversed, most likely. They also have a section there that if you're working in
the cannabis industry, or related somehow to the cannabis industry as an employee, or vendor, that
could be also a negative factor on your ability to get a green card, which again, they kind of taking
in a very, very broad spectrum because there are so many states that legalize that, but the fact
that you're actually working in the industry could be a problem for your green card as well. So, the
bottom line is that this is not a regulation, it's a policy manual. Once the Biden administration is
in power, they can easily revoke this in a second. So, I think people are just going to wait it out
and take their chances. But I don't think that they're going to be too many lawsuits
filed on this because we literally know that on January 20, all this is going to be changed, so…
but it's really important to know that if you're filing, right now, for your Adjustment of Status,
there's going to be a lot of different factors to consider. And remember that your cases are
going to be much more… it's going to be much more complicated to adjudicate your cases
under this new guideline. So, hopefully, this information was helpful. Leave me a comment,
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with more people just like you. If you like this video, make sure you watch these other two videos
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