by kdazzle 8 hours ago
There was just an article in the NYT where ICE is arresting people at the end of their green card interviews for essentially no reason.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/us/trump-green-card-inter...
Those targeted in this article are spouses of US citizens that had entered the US on ESTA and allowed that status to lapse whilst awaiting their AOS.
That was tolerated previously.
It does appear that these arrests have stopped since the NYT article was written.
That’s misinformation. They’re being arrested because they were in the country illegally, usually overstaying a visa: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/green-card...
They have a green card interview because they married an American. But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.
>But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.
This is both right and wrong. Congress passed a law ages ago that grants forgiveness to overstaying spouses once the greencard is issued. The AOS process is allowed.
The hole however is the AOS does not extend your authorized stay if you were out of status when it was filed. So this leaves one vulnerable to the ICE arrests.
However, your AOS can still be processed even when arrested because of the forgiveness granted by law, so it just becomes an issue of having a good lawyer to get a judge to intervene.
I havent been through the US process in a while, but usually that is allowed if your application is processing. You just can’t leave the country.
No, if your visa expires you need to maintain your legal status while a PERM application is pending: https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/maintain... (“This is especially important if and when you are waiting to apply for lawful permanent residence, commonly called a ‘green card.’ If you are in the United States without any immigration status, you are considered to be here illegally, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may deny your green card application for that reason alone.”).
What’s happening here is that these people were here on tourist visas or completely illegally. Then at some point they married a U.S. citizen and filed a PERM application. But that filing doesn’t protect them from deportation for their original illegal status.