SAN DIEGO, May 29, CMC – The California-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) has condemned a new policy by the Trump administration requiring that Caribbean and other green card seekers return home in order to apply for permanent residency status.
In a stunning move last Friday, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in the new policy memo that Caribbean and other immigrants seeking adjustment of status must do so through consular processing via the Department of State outside of the country.
But HBA Executive Director Guerline Jozef told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that this new policy is a “draconian attack on family unity and legal immigration pathways”.
She said the move “effectively” dismantles decades of established adjustment-of-status practice under the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
“The policy limits adjustment of status to ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ despite the longstanding statutory framework established by Congress under INA §245, codified at 8 U.S.C. §1255, which expressly permits eligible individuals inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States to apply for permanent residency from within the country,” Jozef said.
“This policy creates heightened legal risks for immigrants who depart the United States to process abroad, including exposure to lengthy reentry bars triggered by prior periods of unlawful presence , risks Congress specifically sought to mitigate through provisions such as INA §245(i).
“This policy represents a profound departure from both the intent of Congress and decades of settled immigration practice. Forcing families to separate while applications are processed abroad is not merely administratively burdensome, it is economically reckless, legally questionable, and deeply destabilizing for American families, employers and communities”.
Jozef said that HBA is “exploring legal actions and will provide further guidance to our community in the coming days” and that the Trump administration’s decision “threatens to trigger widespread family separation, particularly among mixed-status households in which US citizen spouses and children depend financially and emotionally on family members pursuing lawful permanent residence”.
Jozef warned that this policy could impact hundreds of thousands of applicants annually, including spouses of US citizens, employment-based visa holders, refugees, and long-term residents who have built lives, careers, and families in the United States.
In addition, she said HBA urges “immediate congressional oversight and litigation to prevent the unlawful erosion of adjustment-of-status protections established under federal law.”
President and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), Murad Awawdeh, told CMC that the Trump administration’s new memo is “a blueprint to deny residency from immigrants who meet the legal criteria to stay in the country,
“Adjustment of status in-country has never been an ‘extraordinary’ process, and this shift in language is an attempt to make a well-established process into an artificially restricted one,” he said.
“Immigrant New Yorkers, who are already facing escalating attacks from the federal government, will face increased risk of arbitrary denials and family separation. We need policies that expand stability and protect families, not ones that destabilize communities and punish people for pursuing lawful immigration pathways,” added Awawdeh, whose umbrella policy and advocacy organization represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York.
CMC/nk/ir/2026