SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener on Friday sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s new immigration policy that would prevent many green card applications from being granted inside the United States, forcing applicants to leave the country to complete the process abroad.
According to the Office of Scott Wiener, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it would stop granting green card applications to people inside the country except in “extraordinary circumstances.”
However, Madeline Ngo and Albert Sun of The New York Times reported that “the agency did not detail which groups would be eligible for an exception,” only suggesting that refugees would not be subject to the policy. The agency also stated that people who “provide an economic benefit or otherwise are in the national interest will likely be able to continue on their current path.”
What remains unclear is “which foreign workers would be exempt and if exceptions would extend to skilled foreign workers on H-1B visas.”
According to the Office of Scott Wiener, the policy would affect “hundreds of thousands of Californians — crime victims, asylees, startup founders, scientists, nurses — who have lived and worked” in California for years. The office stated the policy would force them to “return to unsafe countries or separate from their families to obtain a green card.”
Ngo and Sun reported that people seeking permanent residency would instead have to “go through consular processing outside the country.”
In a statement, Zach Kahler, a spokesman for the agency, said “this policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes.” He continued, stating that “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 U.S. illegally after being denied residency.”
In response to the order, Wiener called it a “horrific change.”
Wiener said the order would impact “a huge number of visa holders … including U visa crime victims, people who marry citizens, folks who will be killed or imprisoned if they return to their countries to apply, startup founders and scientists who came here to build and discover, and many more.”
He continued, stating that if people are forced to leave the country and return to their country of origin to apply for a green card, they would “be stuck there for years, given backlogs created by DOGE.” Others, he said, could be “placed in mortal danger by governments who consider them traitors or undesirables.”
Wiener sympathized with those affected, stating they are “people with families, jobs, businesses, lives in our communities.” He added that “forcing them out is beyond inhumane, in addition to being highly self-destructive for our country.”
He also blamed the Trump administration for the order, stating that “the Trump regime doesn’t give a damn about human beings or our country’s future.” He added that the administration “separates families without hesitation, and it runs roughshod over the dreamers who come here to build the companies of the future, make discoveries that cure diseases, and do the work that keeps our country running.”
Ngo and Sun described the policy as a “major escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb legal immigration” and noted that “federal officials have in recent months sought to strip some naturalized citizens of their status and review thousands of green card holders to root out immigrants they believe should be deported.”
Wiener concluded by asserting that “immigrants built this country, and we must stand strong to defend them.” He urged that “this cruel and inhumane order must be challenged immediately in court.”
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