Reporting and analysis on family-sponsored petitions, marriage and fiancé visas, adjustment of status, and consular processing.
Brought as a child, left the country as a teenager, then traveled in and out for years — and only discovers through a FOIA request that an immigration judge ordered removal in absentia in 2008. A familiar pattern, with sharply narrowed exits in 2026.
A J-1 research scholar engaged to a U.S. citizen calls in to ask whether to marry and adjust now, or renew the J-1 and wait. The new USCIS adjustment-of-status memo has reshaped the answer — and not in the direction J-1 holders were hoping.
USCIS is now interviewing nearly every I-485 applicant, including employment-based filers. With the May 21 memo redefining adjustment as 'extraordinary' discretionary relief, what attorneys tell clients about the in-status defense, the 60/90-day fraud presumption, and the questions officers are asking has changed sharply.