Law Office of Karin Wolman

06/10/2026

What to do About the Adjustment of Status Policy Memo, PM-602-0199

First, don’t panic. USCIS cannot change the law by memorandum. While the policy memo of May 21, 2026 attempts to recharacterize Adjustment of Status as a rare form of discretionary relief granted only in “extraordinary circumstances”, that is false. It has been permitted by statute for 74 years, and Congress has steadily expanded who is covered by this law. INA 245 was passed in 1952, when Congress noted, “This procedure was specifically devised to obviate the need for departure and reentry in the cases of aliens temporarily in the United States.”

That said, USCIS officers have broad discretion to weigh all positive and negative factors, assessing the totality of circumstances. They have been given new questions to ask AOS applicants which are being applied to cases already filed. Please don’t decide whether to file for adjustment or attend your interview without first consulting an experienced immigration attorney.

Who does it cover?
The policy memo applies to adjustment applicants in the Family-based, Employment-based, Diversity Visa Lottery, Cuban Adjustment Act, Special Immigrant, T& U victims of trafficking or crime, Asylum, Lautenberg parolee, and Section 13 diplomat categories.
Who is NOT covered?
NACARA, Refugee, HRIFA & LRIF applicants: These are non-discretionary.

What are the new questions officers may ask at AOS interviews?
Why did you apply for adjustment of status instead of consular processing?
Are there factors that would prevent you from pursuing consular processing in your home country?
Do you have any family still living there?
Why did you decide not to return to your country when your status expired?

What are the negative factors?
• Violations of immigration law or any current or prior status
• Fraud or false testimony in dealings with USCIS or any government agency
• Conduct inconsistent with the purpose of admission as nonimmigrant or parolee
• Failure to depart within the period of authorized stay
• Applying for AOS in a category where consular processing is available
• Preconceived intent to avoid consular processing

Mere absence of negative factors does not establish sufficient equities to warrant favorable exercise of discretion. To overcome any negative factors, applicants must now show “unusual or outstanding equities.”

What are the positive factors?
• Family ties in the United States - US citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident spouse, children or parents
• Residence of long duration in the US, particularly if it began at a young age
• Long-term community integration (economic contributions, civic involvement)
• Hardship to the applicant or family if adjustment is not granted
• Evidence of good moral character (no arrest history, professional achievements, charitable contributions, volunteer services)
• Demonstrated benefit to the US (employer sponsorship, specialized skills, economic contributions, other national interest considerations)
• Education
• Fluency or proficiency in English
• Service in the US Armed Forces
• Business or property ties to the US
• Evidence of service to the community (religious, cultural & volunteer organizations)
• Timely payment of taxes
• Proof of rehabilitation, if any criminal record exists
• Any other evidence that a favorable exercise of discretion is warranted

Other considerations
The default selection on immigrant visa petitions filed after issuance of the AOS memo should be to request consular processing, so that the case can be forwarded to the National Visa Center promptly in the event that adjustment of status cannot be granted.

*If you are the primary caretaker for an elderly parent, minor child, or disabled relative
*If there are currently no US consular services provided in your home country
*If you are subject to the 75-country visa ban
* if your departure from the US would trigger the 3-year or 10-year bar to readmission (more compelling if the original reason for overstay was beyond your control)

05/22/2026

USCIS is now trying to cut off Adjustment of Status for almost everyone, by policy memo. INA 245a has been the law since 1952. It’s not a “loophole.”

03/11/2026

Use of AI Tools Impacts Confidentiality, Privilege & Attorney Work-Product:
Concerns for Attorneys In the Wake of US v. Heppner
©Karin Wolman, March 11, 2026


As illustrated in the Venn diagram, confidentiality is a broad ethical duty owed by lawyers and law firms to all clients not to disclose the subject matter of representation nor the identity of the client to any third parties, without that client’s informed consent. The duty of confidentiality is outlined at ABA Model Rule 1.6. Confidentiality encompasses two narrower and more specific classes of verbal and written communications legally protected against disclosure in discovery, in court or before a tribunal, namely those communications and documents protected by attorney-client privilege, a statutory right belonging to the client, who may either invoke the privilege or waive it, and those deemed attorney work-product, prepared by or for the attorney in anticipation of litigation. In New York state, for example, privileged attorney-client communications are defined broadly at NY CPLR 4503 and include legal advice and preparation for administrative actions and hearings as well as trials, so it clearly covers most immigration matters, and CPLR 4548 extends that privilege to electronic communications; NY CPLR 3101(c ) extends absolute privilege against disclosure to materials created by an attorney that reveal their legal research, analysis, strategy, or theory of the case. All privileged attorney-client communications are confidential, but not all confidential communications are privileged.

In immigration law, where dual representation is the norm rather than the exception, we are often confronted with questions of who holds the privilege, and what kinds of documents prepared in an immigration context are privileged, which may depend in turn on state law. The application of state law is complicated in this federal practice area by questions of where is the employer, where is the beneficiary, and where is the law firm, so which state’s law governs?

This landscape changed dramatically in February 2026 with the US v. Heppner decision (1:25-cr-00503-JSR), SDNY, Feb. 17, 2026. A criminal defendant charged with wire & securities fraud, false statements to auditors, and falsification of records in connection with a scheme to defraud investors fed questions about his fact pattern into Claude, a public AI platform, before conveying those facts and the resulting AI analysis to his attorney. Judge Rakoff found that the public AI platform was a third party, and that as a non-human, it was incapable of fiduciary duty. Both the defendant’s fact pattern and the AI analysis of it were not, and could not be, covered by attorney-client privilege based on his communicating them to counsel after the fact, because he had already disclosed them to a third party (Claude, the AI platform), thus waiving confidentiality. Subsequent use of Claude’s analysis by counsel in trial preparation could not retroactively turn the AI documents into protected attorney work-product. The court found that privilege cannot attach retroactively. The court also held that the attorney work product doctrine could not attach to AI documents because they had been created independently by the defendant, not prepared at the direction of counsel. So, to recap:

• A public AI platform is a third party with no fiduciary capacity: disclosure waives confidentiality & privilege
• Privilege cannot attach retroactively to anything already disclosed to 3rd parties
• Material already shared with a 3rd party does not become protected work product when an attorney uses it in preparing for a legal matter

Lessons moving forward: if a client, or a prospective client, feeds the fact pattern of a case into a public AI platform, that information is no longer confidential, and the client cannot assert privilege with respect to that fact pattern. A much more alarming supervisory and liability problem arises if a paralegal or junior associate in a law firm feeds a client’s fact pattern into a public AI platform.
Best practice going forward is that for attorney-client privilege to survive in cases where any LLM or generative AI tools are used in legal research, analysis, writing or any steps in case preparation, all such AI use must be directed by counsel under the terms of engagement, using only enterprise-licensed AI tools operating in a closed ecosystem, with an express expectation of confidentiality, and supporting documentation of the contractual limits on the AI tool’s training use, retention, disclosure, access and security controls.

Any attorney who has had a consultation in the past year is well aware that this concern may arise before the law firm is retained, as prospective clients may use public AI tools to frame their questions for counsel prior to initial consultation, and to craft detailed follow-up questions after consultation. To that end, I offer the following warning to prospective clients:

“Thank you for putting your trust in [Law Firm]. While our initial consultation is privileged and confidential, it is important for you to be aware that those protections are fragile, and can easily be destroyed by feeding your fact pattern, our legal advice, or any portions or combination thereof into a public AI platform. While the consultation fee covers one meeting of up to an hour and one email for follow-up questions, we urge you not to use any public AI platform (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.) to draft your initial or follow-up questions, as doing so may waive both attorney-client privilege and confidentiality.”

02/06/2026

Reminder for US employers and all interns/entry-level employees currently in F-1 OPT or STEM OPT:

- This year’s H-1B Cap Lottery registration period is from noon Eastern on March 4, 2026 to noon Eastern March 19, 2026;

-Registration fee is $215;

-you’ll need the worker’s full legal name, birthdate & country of birth, country of citizenship, & valid
passport information;

-you’ll need particulars about the level, type & academic field of their degree, and whether the U.S. school that conferred it was both nonprofit & accredited;

-you’ll need to know the Standard Occupational Classification & wage level that applies to the professional job offered. If the wage offered meets or exceeds Level IV, that means 4 chances of selection in the lottery; if it meets Level III, that means 3 chances, and so forth.

Consult with counsel sooner rather than later.

Understand the DOL wage level worksheet, and be aware that any mismatch between the wage level shown on the cap lottery registration and the wage shown on the H-1B petition ultimately filed with USCIS, if your registration is selected, may result in a fraud finding. This process is much more intricate than it used to be, and it is full of traps for the unwary.

09/21/2025

For those trying to keep track of the madness with this new $100k fee for H-1Bs:

The Proclamation was drafted badly, by someone who either can’t tell the difference or wants to obfuscate the difference between a visa petition to USCIS, a visa application at a U.S. consulate abroad, and an application for admission at a port of entry - because they know that a travel/entry ban under INA 212(f) is within presidential authority, but any fee to be collected by USCIS or CBP would have to comply with INA 286(m) by being reasonably related to agency costs, and any such fee collection would require publication in the Federal Register and a formal Notice and Comment period before it could go into effect.

It was released late on a Friday, to take effect in the middle of a weekend, just coincidentally on the very first day that cap-subject H-1B workers with brand new visas could enter the U.S. to start their new jobs beginning on October 1.

The Proclamation, the White House press announcement walking it back, and the memoranda from USCIS and CBP don’t agree with each other. The resulting pandemonium was the goal.

All of these government pronouncements talk about curbing fraud and abuse, but the real casualty of this $100,000 fee will be the cap-exempt H-1B petitioners, the universities, research institutions, hospitals and healthcare organizations that cannot afford this fee and upon which our entire healthcare system depends.

The White House announcement says it only applies to new applicants outside the U.S. who don’t already have a valid visa, not to those inside the U.S. who need renewals. This tells us nothing about new change of employer petitions by either cap-subject or cap-exempt employers filed after 9/21.

09/20/2025

Late breaking news: White House proclamation imposes an annual entry ban/admission fee under INA 212(f) of $100,000 on H-1B workers. No specific exemptions for cap-exempt employers, or for renewals, so it presumptively covers everyone, including H-1B1, and H-4 dependents, and visa-exempt Canadians. No mechanism even to pay the fee yet. If you are outside the U.S. and already have a valid H-1B, H-1B1, or H-4 visa, the ban kicks in at 12:01 EDT, so get back on US soil before midnight tomorrow. Everyone in H status in the U.S., if you have international travel plans, cancel them & wait until this is litigated.

03/15/2025

If you’re a dual citizen, Lawful Permanent Resident or visa holder from any of these countries, especially the red list, get back to the US before March 21 or you may not be able to.

A draft circulating inside the administration lists three tiers of countries whose citizens may face restrictions on entering the United States.

02/21/2025

02/19/2025

Let history remember

02/19/2025

https://youtu.be/iwJDG3mMvow?feature=shared

The top 3 recurring problem areas I see with small to medium-size enterprises sponsoring L1A managerial transferees and EB-1C multinational managers