Adjustment of Status and "Self-Deportation"?

Ajouté : 2026-05-30

[00:00:09]Hello, my name is Benjamin Hart. I'm an American attorney and the managing director of Integrity Legal here in Bangkok, Thailand. Done a number of videos here in the past week regarding basically the fact that the Trump administration is telling USCIS under the Department of Homeland Security to not issue residence cards, to not issue green cards anymore, and basically anybody that's applying for a green card needs to go outside the country and come back in. They basically have to consular process and then come back in on a green card. Now, the problem with that is in in countries much like Thailand that are on the list of countries that Trump has put a pause, which started as a ban, but it was a it's a pause on new immigrant visa issuance, it creates basically a bottleneck and then stops up the bottleneck essentially. It's it compels people to have to leave to process their immigrant spousal case, but in the case of Thailand, we're on the list of countries that you're not going to see an immigrant spousal visa issued from, which I still don't really understand why in light of the fact that, you know, no problem issuing Chinese visas, but Thailand, America's oldest ally in East Asia, is getting treated like this, but whatever, here we are.

[00:01:22]The question posed by this video is one, okay, they're not issuing green cards in the United States, supposedly, but then again, as I've discussed in other videos, the K-1 visa, for example, is specifically designed to go to the United States precisely to seek one's residence therein. So, again, this this all of these policies are very much sometimes in just direct contravention of what the law actually says with regard to matters pertaining to immigration. Meanwhile, I do understand the the desire to curb basically immigration fraud where people are coming into the United States on non-immigrant visas and basically disingenuously. They're coming in and saying, "Oh, I'm a non-immigrant.

[00:02:07]I'm a tourist." And then as soon as they arrive, they meet the love of their life or something and then immediately apply for green card status. Now, I'm not saying everybody is necessarily a bad actor, but they do exist. We we know this. Now, the thing to take away from this video and understand them at least from my point of view is to me I would think that you want to crack down on change of status. And and that being, you know, people that don't don't have a visa that in and of itself allows a pathway into green card status. Change of status is something substantively different than adjustment of status. For example, again you enter the United States on a K-1 visa, which is a non-immigrant visa, but it is a dual intent non-immigrant visa. You're allowed to have immigrant and non-immigrant intent simultaneously. I mean, the statute actually designed that visa to go to America for the sole purpose of adjusting status, getting married and adjusting status. So, again, this idea of self-deportation in a case where you're specifically going down a pipeline that requires adjustment, I just don't really see how that's going to work out. Now, again, I expect there will be legal challenges which will have ramifications across the board.

[00:03:23]Remains to be seen how that plays out, so we'll certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.