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On May 21, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199. The official press release that accompanied it declared that USCIS would grant adjustment of status "only in extraordinary circumstances," causing panic and consternation within the immigrant community. The following week, amongst talks of looming litigation, the government subtly walked back on its pronouncement, clarifying that the policy is not so much a prohibition against adjustment but a reminder to its officers to consider all relevant factors while adjudicating cases. That being said, there is still widespread confusion and uncertainty on how the government is implementing this policy for cases that have already been filed and how this new practice will affect cases going forward.
It is important to understand that a grant of adjustment of status has always been discretionary. Under INA Section 245(a), USCIS officers have always had the authority to deny a green card application even when the applicant has met every technical eligibility requirement if the totality of circumstances militated against approval. While the USCIS may have arguably exaggerated or mischaracterized adjustment as a matter of “administrative grace,” the fact of the matter is that adjustment of status has been legally allowed for decades; and discretion, while always implicit, was rarely exercised to deny cases in the absence of clear issues of admissibility or egregious circumstances.
What PM-602-0199 does is reframe how officers are directed to use that discretion. The memo instructs officers to treat adjustment of status as “extraordinary relief” from the default process, which USCIS now says is consular processing abroad. It directs officers to weigh, as a discretionary factor, whether applicants could simply leave and apply at a U.S. consulate, and whether their decision to remain in the U.S. and file an I-485 was consistent with the purpose of their original admission.
What the memo does not do is eliminate adjustment of status as a pathway, create new statutory eligibility requirements, prohibit new I-485 filings, or automatically deny pending applications. Form I-485 remains legally available for many people. The statutory framework Congress built has not changed or been eradicated. According to the USCIS, in the wake of all the uproar instigated by the memo’s release, the memo is an instruction to officers about how to exercise discretion they already had, not a new legal prohibition.
The memo does include one procedural protection worth noting: it requires that any denial must include a specific written explanation of the reasons. That requirement creates a reviewable record, which matters if an applicant needs to appeal or seek judicial review.
It is worth noting that even though USCIS has retreated from its original position, the memo still presents formidable burdens that were essentially non-existent before its release. This new case-by-case review means that officers now have institutional authority to scrutinize the discretionary component of every application more rigorously than they did before. While there is an appreciable difference between a categorical denial policy and heightened scrutiny, increased stringency will invariably lead to more denials. Applicants who previously had clean, straightforward cases may now face additional questions, Requests for Evidence, or intensive questioning they would not have encountered six months ago.
The memo affects different applicants differently, and the dispositive issue is whether your visa category carries what immigration law calls “dual intent,” the legally recognized ability to hold a temporary nonimmigrant status while simultaneously pursuing permanent residence.
H-1B and L-1 visa holders are in the strongest position. The memo explicitly acknowledges that dual-intent classifications remain compatible with pursuing adjustment of status. An H-1B worker with a clean compliance history, continuous lawful status, and a current priority date is not immune from scrutiny, but certainly on well-established statutory ground. The same protection extends to H-4 and L-2 dependents deriving their status from a principal dual-intent holder.
Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens-- spouses, parents, and minor children--retain meaningful statutory protections under INA Section 245(c) that other categories do not have, including exemptions for certain prior status violations. Those exemptions remain in place. However, the memo directs officers to consider discretionary factors even for immediate relatives, which means that officers can still conceivably deny an otherwise eligible spouse's case based on preconceived immigrant intent or other negative equities. This would be aggressive application of the memo, and it remains to be seen whether officers will go that far, but it is a real risk that did not exist in the same way before May 21.
A more vulnerable group under this memo consists of single, non-immigrant intent visa holders such as F-1 students, B-1/B-2 tourists, and others admitted on visas that carried no expectation of immigrant intent. For these applicants, the memo's core argument lands most directly: remaining in the U.S. to pursue a green card while on a temporary visa can now be characterized as inconsistent with the purpose of their admission. That framing will give officers significant latitude to deny cases in this category that previously would have been approvable.
When clients hear that USCIS is making adjustment of status harder, the instinctive response, for some, is to just leave and apply for a visa abroad. On the surface, this seems rational. However, in practice, under certain conditions, it can be one of the most consequential mistakes an immigration applicant can make.
Federal immigration law imposes automatic unlawful presence bars that are triggered the moment a noncitizen departs the United States. If you have accrued more than 180 days of unlawful presence (and many people do so without realizing it), a departure from the US triggers a three-year bar on reentry. If you have accrued more than one year, the bar is ten years. These bars are not easily waivable and cannot be undone after the fact.
Beyond the unlawful presence risk, consular processing is rife with increased delays. U.S. consulates are currently dealing with expanded social media vetting requirements, interview backlogs, and administrative processing delays that can stretch timelines well beyond a year in many posts.
There is also the employment reality for our Middlesex County and Edison-area clients. If you are an H-1B worker in the middle of an active I-485, leaving for consular processing means months abroad without work authorization in the U.S. Many employers simply will not hold open a position through that kind of gap. The decision to leave is not just a legal question; it is a career question, and one that should be made with full information. Similarly, in the context of family cases, many families cannot afford to be separated while awaiting consular processing. There are substantial physical, emotional, and mental hardships that may arise due to an applicant having to wait abroad.
If you already have a pending I-485, the memo did not withdraw it, revoke it, or move it to a denial queue. Your application retains its place in the system. The law that governs your eligibility has not changed. USCIS is still scheduling interviews, and we have attended several at Newark, Cranbury, and Mount Laurel since the memo was issued.
If you have a pending I-485 and any negative factors in your immigration history, including prior status violations, prior visa denials, periods of unlawful presence, prior removal proceedings, or anything that required an explanation at filing, now is the time to have counsel review your file and make sure your discretionary record is ready to withstand closer scrutiny. Waiting until an RFE arrives, if you receive one, and then scrambling to gather evidence is not the right approach in this environment.
The single most useful thing you can do at this moment, regardless of where your case stands, is to honestly assess whether there are any negative factors in your case as well as determine whether you have accrued unlawful presence (and if so, how much?).
If you have not yet filed and are weighing whether to proceed with adjustment of status, take the time to do the analysis properly. Unless the policy is struck down in court or USCIS further modifies it, the framework has changed. The question of whether to file here or process abroad has become increasingly complex and should involve consultation with an immigration attorney.