Haitian group condemns Trump’s new green card policy

The San Diego, CA-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) on Thursday, May 28, condemned a new policy by the Trump administration in the United States requiring that Caribbean and other green card seekers return home in order to apply for permanent residency status.

In a stunning move last Friday, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in the new policy memo that Caribbean and other immigrants seeking adjustment of status must do so through consular processing via the Department of State outside of the country.

HBA Executive Director Guerline Jozef told Caribbean Life that this new policy is a “draconian attack on family unity and legal immigration pathways.” She said the move “effectively” dismantles decades of established adjustment-of-status practice under the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

“The policy limits adjustment of status to ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ despite the longstanding statutory framework established by Congress under INA §245, codified at 8 U.S.C. §1255, which expressly permits eligible individuals inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States to apply for permanent residency from within the country,” Jozef said.

“This policy creates heightened legal risks for immigrants who depart the United States to process abroad, including exposure to lengthy reentry bars triggered by prior periods of unlawful presence — risks Congress specifically sought to mitigate through provisions such as INA §245(i),” she added. “This policy represents a profound departure from both the intent of Congress and decades of settled immigration practice.

Jozef disclosed that HBA is “exploring legal actions and will provide further guidance to our community in the coming days.”

She said the Trump administration’s decision “threatens to trigger widespread family separation, particularly among mixed-status households in which US citizen spouses and children depend financially and emotionally on family members pursuing lawful permanent residence.”

Jozef warned that this policy could impact hundreds of thousands of applicants annually, including spouses of US citizens, employment-based visa holders, refugees, and long-term residents who have built lives, careers, and families in the United States.

She said the economic consequences are “equally severe,” stating that many individuals adjusting status are “integral members of the American workforce, including professionals in healthcare, technology, education, hospitality, logistics, and small business sectors.

Therefore, Jozef called on the US Congress, civil society organizations, employers, faith leaders and legal advocates to “reject this draconian policy and defend the integrity of America’s family-based immigration system.”

In addition, she said HBA urges “immediate congressional oversight and litigation to prevent the unlawful erosion of adjustment-of-status protections established under federal law.”

Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organization that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York, told Caribbean Life that the Trump administration’s new memo is “a blueprint to deny residency from immigrants who meet the legal criteria to stay in the country,

“Adjustment of status in-country has never been an ‘extraordinary’ process, and this shift in language is an attempt to make a well-established process into an artificially restricted one,” he said. “Immigrant New Yorkers — who are already facing escalating attacks from the federal government — will face increased risk of arbitrary denials and family separation.

“We need policies that expand stability and protect families, not ones that destabilize communities and punish people for pursuing lawful immigration pathways,” added Awawdeh, calling on the Trump administration to rescind this “flawed directive and restore the normal USCIS adjudication process for green cards.”

USCIS said in the new policy memo that “officers are directed to consider all relevant factors and information on a case-by-case basis when determining whether an alien warrants this extraordinary form of relief.”

Spokesman Zach Kahler said the administration is “returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly.

“From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a green card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” he said. “This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes.

“When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the US illegally after being denied residency,” he added.

Zahler noted that nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the US for a short time and for a specific purpose, and that the system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over.

“Their visit should not function as the first step in the green card process,” he warned. “Following the law allows the majority of these cases to be handled by the State Department at US consular offices abroad and frees up limited USCIS resources to focus on processing other cases that fall under its purview, including visas for victims of violent crime and human trafficking, naturalization applications, and other priorities.

The new policy directive comes as US President Donald J. Trump, as part of his overall deportation agenda, seeks to strip some Caribbean and other immigrants of their green cards, and, in some cases, US citizenship.

Last week, for instance, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that a Cuban national allegedly tied to a top Cuban financial official had been arrested and her lawful permanent resident (LPR) status, or green card, terminated at his direction.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants residing in Miami, said in a statement that Adys Lastres Morera is now in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

The US Secretary of State said Morera is the adult sister of Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, who was sanctioned earlier this month by the State Department for her role as the executive president of GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), the Cuban military-controlled financial conglomerate.

The Trump administration is also seeking to strip the citizenship of a convicted Cuban spy.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that it has filed a civil denaturalization complaint against Victor Manuel Rocha in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The DOJ said Rocha is a native of Colombia, who was convicted of serving as “an unregistered agent for the Republic of Cuba.”

“Under no circumstances should an agent of a foreign adversary be permitted to hold the title of American citizen,” said Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate. “Our mission is clear: to root out these fraudsters and preserve the sanctity of the naturalization process for those who adhere to our laws.

“Any individual who lied during the naturalization process to gain a foothold in this country will be met with the full weight of the Department of Justice,” he added.

The DOJ said the US seeks an order revoking Rocha’s naturalization “based on his admission in criminal proceedings that he began spying for Cuba in 1973 before he naturalized in 1978.

“When he applied for naturalization, Rocha represented, under penalty of perjury, that he had not committed crimes for which he had not been arrested; he was not affiliated with the Communist Party of Cuba; he had not advocated, believed in, or knowingly supported and furthered the interests of Communism; and he believed in the US Constitution and the form of government of the US,” the DOJ said. “None of these were true.”

In 2023, the DOJ said Rocha was charged with several counts related to spying for Cuba and passport fraud.

In April 2024, the DOJ said Rocha admitted that, starting in or around 1973, he “secretly supported the Republic of Cuba and its clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against the US by serving as a covert agent of Cuba’s intelligence services.”

The DOJ said Rocha pleaded guilty and was convicted of Conspiracy to Act as an Agent of a Foreign Government and to Defraud the United States and Acting as an Illegal Agent of a Foreign Government.

He was sentenced to and is serving a 15-year sentence, the DOJ said.

It said the US will bring seven independent counts seeking the revocation of Rocha’s US citizenship.