New Uncertainty for Green Card Applicants Married to U.S. Citizens
They came expecting paperwork and questions. Instead, they were taken away in handcuffs.
A British mother arrived at her green card interview carrying her infant. A Ukrainian refugee showed up, hoping to secure the future she thought she was building. A woman married to a U.S. Navy veteran believed she was completing one of the final steps toward permanent residency. A German man was preparing to celebrate his first wedding anniversary.
All of them are spouses of U.S. citizens. All of them believed they were following the law. And all of them were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during what were supposed to be routine green card interviews.
In San Diego alone, immigration attorneys say there have been several dozen such cases in recent weeks. Similar detentions have been reported in New York City, Cleveland, and Utah, according to local news outlets and legal advocates. For immigration lawyers, the shift has been alarming.
This is unprecedented,” said attorneys who have practiced immigration law for decades. They say spouses who are legally eligible for permanent residency and who have no criminal records are now terrified that showing up for a required interview could lead to sudden detention.
Jan Joseph Bejar, an immigration attorney in San Diego, recently watched one of his own clients being taken into custody. If this approach spreads nationwide, he warned, the consequences would be severe. “It would be huge,” he said. “It would be really devastating.”
The detentions are part of a broader push under President Donald Trump to tighten immigration policies, including increasing scrutiny of green card applicants and restricting legal pathways into the United States.
In several cases, the Trump administration has argued that those detained had fallen out of legal status by overstaying visas. However, longtime immigration attorneys argue that this explanation overlooks decades of established law and practice. Congress has long carved out exceptions for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, including spouses. Under the law, they are eligible to apply for green cards, even if they were previously out of status, as long as they meet other specific requirements.
For families caught in this shift, the legal debate offers little comfort. What they see instead is separation, fear, and uncertainty, parents pulled away from children, couples unsure when or if they will see each other again. Many now wonder whether doing everything “by the book” is still enough to keep their families together.
What was once a routine step toward legal residency has, for some, become a moment that changed their lives forever.
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New Uncertainty for Green Card Applicants Married to U.S. Citizens
For decades, there has been a clear legal pathway for spouses of U.S. citizens to become permanent residents, even if they once fell out of legal status. That carve-out was intentional, designed by Congress to keep families together.
This is going about doing things the right way,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute. “This was or is the legal path for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, including spouses, to adjust their status.”
But Gelatt noted a crucial reality of the system: the process can take well over a year. During that long wait, people can easily slip out of legal status through no fault of their own. “You could very easily fall out of status right in the process of waiting for that green card through marriage,” she said.
In some cases, the outcome has been jarring but uneven. The British mother who was detained at her interview was released nearly a week later, and her green card was ultimately approved, according to NBC San Diego. The wife of a U.S. Navy veteran was released on bond, but now must fight her case in immigration court. The fate of the German man and the Ukrainian refugee remains unclear.
All four had overstayed visas, a technical violation, but were still legally eligible to become green card holders under U.S. law, according to their attorneys.
Immigration lawyers say these cases are likely just the tip of the iceberg. While it’s difficult to quantify exactly how many people could be affected, attorneys warn that many spouses of U.S. citizens fall into this same category. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, hundreds of thousands of people are currently somewhere in the green card application process.
Once someone is detained by ICE, the situation becomes far more complicated. Their case is pushed into immigration court, where a government prosecutor can argue against granting them legal status even if they were initially eligible. Jan Joseph Bejar, an immigration attorney in San Diego, said the already massive court backlog means these cases could drag on for years, costing families time, money, and emotional stability and costing taxpayers as well.
New Uncertainty for Green Card Applicants Married to U.S. Citizens
Federal agencies say they are simply enforcing the law. In a statement to NBC News, USCIS spokesperson Matthew J. Tragesser said apprehensions at agency offices may occur if individuals are found to have outstanding warrants, prior removal orders, or to have committed fraud or other violations of immigration law.
The Trump administration has been abundantly clear: aliens must respect our laws or face the consequences,” Tragesser said. “Overstaying a visa is an immigration law violation that can result in deportation.”
ICE echoed that stance in a statement to NBC San Diego, saying the agency is committed to enforcing immigration laws through “targeted operations” and that individuals out of status, even those appearing at USCIS offices, may face arrest and removal.
But for families caught in the middle, those explanations offer little comfort.
Bejar recalled one of his clients, a young man married to a U.S. citizen, who was detained at a San Diego USCIS office just two days before Thanksgiving. The couple arrived together for what they believed was a routine interview, a milestone they had waited months to reach.
The interview was going well,” Bejar said. The officer told them he planned to approve the first part of their petition. Then, without warning, ICE agents entered the room and took the husband away.
The man had been brought to the U.S. from Mexico as a young teenager after his parents overstayed their visa. Now in his early 20s, with no criminal record, he had recently married a U.S. citizen and was trying to regularize his status exactly as the law allows for immediate relatives.
Instead of leaving the building with relief, he was left in custody.
For attorneys like Bejar, these moments represent a profound shift not just in policy, but in trust. Families who believed they were following the law are now questioning whether showing up, telling the truth, and doing everything “right” might be what puts them at risk.
What was meant to be a pathway to stability has, for many, become a moment of fear, one that could separate families for years to come.
