Children of H-1B visa holders may now age out of their protected legal status while their parents apply for green cards, under a Trump administration policy change announced Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it was reversing a Biden administration policy that prevented young adults from losing their legal status if a parent’s application was still pending when their children reached age 21.
Why It Matters
Around 200,000 children and young adults could be affected by the change, which comes amid a flurry of alterations at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to bring policies in line with President Donald Trump’s directives to tighten immigration controls.
What To Know
The USCIS policy change affects those who fall under the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA), which the administration of former President Joe Biden had allowed in February 2023 to apply to some children as soon as their parents became eligible to apply for a green card.
That meant that even if they “aged out” during the wait for a green card, they would not lose legal status.
On Friday, the Trump administration rolled those extensions back, saying that CSPA protections would once again only apply when a visa becomes available via the Department of State. USCIS said this would create a more consistent approach for those applying for adjustment of status and immigrant visas.
With long wait times for adjustment of status applications, particularly for H-1B and other temporary visa holders, this could now mean that when a dependent child turns 21, they lose their legal status and may have to leave the U.S., even if they have lived in the country for most or all of their lives.
Doug Rand, a DHS official during the Biden administration, said that many of those children would be American to their core, but would now be forced to the back of the line for a green card.
What People Are Saying
USCIS, in a news release: “The Feb. 14, 2023, policy resulted in inconsistent treatment of aliens who applied for adjustment of status in the United States versus aliens outside the United States who applied for an immigrant visa with the Department of State.”
Doug Rand, former DHS official, in a statement shared with Newsweek: “Back in 2023, the team I was part of at USCIS made a sensible policy change to make this situation a little less awful for a few more young people. Basically, the government has a choice about whether certain people who “age out” of their immigration status can still hang on to their parents’ place in line for a green card some day.
“We chose yes. Today, the Trump administration is choosing no.”
What’s Next
The new guidance will apply to requests filed after August 15, with those already in process not affected.
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