Trump directive makes immigrant status adjustment discretionary

The Trump Administration has issued a directive making the US-based immigration status adjustment process discretionary rather than guaranteed, a move advocates warn could affect hundreds of thousands of immigrants — including many in Orange County — and force families apart.

The directive prioritizes consular processing — requiring applicants to travel abroad — over the longstanding in-country process Congress created specifically to prevent family separations. Orange County's large and diverse immigrant communities face direct exposure to the shift.

The guidance, reported Monday by ABC7 Los Angeles, instructs immigration officials to treat the domestic adjustment-of-status process as a discretionary option rather than a right — giving priority instead to consular processing, which requires applicants to leave the United States and apply through their home country's US embassy or consulate.

Congress originally created the in-country adjustment process specifically to prevent family separations while immigration cases were pending, advocates noted. The new directive upends that intent, potentially requiring individuals who have lived and worked in the United States for years — including temporary workers, refugees and parents of adult US citizens who overstayed their visas — to travel abroad to complete their cases.

"Supposedly, the strategy is to make it so difficult for our community that we self-deport or that we go back to our home country. But the reality is that this is our country," Martha Arevalo, executive director of CARECEN, said, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

Immigrant rights organizations vowed immediate legal action. "Our sister organization, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, has actually sued this administration multiple times for violations of our due process rights, for putting forward these kind of processes that only hurt our community and that divide our families. So one more time, we're going to take him to court," Angelica Salas, executive director of CHIRLA, said, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and other advocacy organizations are also expected to challenge the directive. Critics argue the policy contradicts the legislative purpose behind the domestic adjustment process and exposes hundreds of thousands of current applicants to deportation risk while their cases remain unresolved.

The full legal scope of the directive remains contested as immigrant advocacy groups finalize court challenges to a policy critics say undermines a process Congress designed to keep families together.