24/05/2026
Leave the US to apply for a green card
USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199 issued 21 May, carries one of the longer titles I have read in a while: Adjustment of Status is a Matter of Discretion and Administrative Grace and an Extraordinary Relief that Permits Applicants to Dispense with the Ordinary Consular Visa Process.
Strip the formality and three things sit underneath it.
First, a reclassification of the front door. For most of the modern era the inside route, Adjustment of Status under INA s245, has functioned as the default. The new memo re-frames it as the exception. The consulate abroad is restored as the ordinary route. AOS is restored as the relief.
Second, a return of discretion as a real adjudicative tool. Officers are now directed to weigh, on the record, family ties, immigration history, moral character, prior conduct, the manner of entry and whether status was respected. Each denial on discretionary grounds must carry a written explanation. The bar is not new. The visibility of the bar is.
Third, the carve outs matter as much as the rule. The memo expressly preserves dual intent for H-1B and L-1 holders. It expressly preserves AOS where it is the only available pathway. It reminds officers, plainly, that spouses of US citizens have historically received the most favourable exercise of discretion.
So what is actually new.
Not the law. Section 245 has always been discretionary. What is new is that discretion has been pulled back into the centre of the file, in writing, with named factors. The system has not closed. It has become more legible, more documented and for the unprepared applicant, more unforgiving.
A pending case in the US is no longer a comfortable place to sit. It is now a place that requires a thesis.
A travel decision in the next twelve months is no longer logistics. It is strategy.
A pathway choice between AOS and consular processing is no longer a matter of convenience. It is the central question of the file, and it should be answered on paper, before any form is signed.
The countries appearing on the State Department's paused adjudication list this month and there are over seventy should read the memo and the bulletin together, not separately. The two documents are one policy posture.
I will leave the panic to the headlines.
The work as ever is on substance.
