DHS Quits Granting Green Cards - Almost Entirely

Article author: 
David J. Bier, Cato Institute
Article publisher: 
American Renaissance
Article date: 
27 May 2026
Article category: 
National News
Medium
Article Body: 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday that it will cease granting green card applications except in extraordinary circumstances. In short, DHS grants green cards when a qualified immigrant who is inside the United States applies to adjust their status to legal permanent residence. Now, every legal immigrant must leave the country—that is, self-deport—even if they are qualified for a green card and even if leaving would disqualify them.

The policy is a radical expansion of DHS’s “quiet quitting” on legal immigration that has been going on for months. As I previously detailed, DHS—or, more precisely, its component known as US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)—has slashed green card approvals in half over the last year. This drop came primarily from not processing applications. Now USCIS’s new memorandum details a plan for mass denials. USCIS has gone from the “quiet-quit” to walking out on 1.2 million green card applicants...

... the vast majority of the 1.2 million backlogged legal immigrants with pending green card applications for legal permanent residence will have to self-deport...