Thread by @ReichlinMelnick

Further update in USCIS's push to inject even more "discretion" into immigration benefit adjudications.

While these benefits have always *technically* required discretion, this administration has moved to codify and expand it in ways that will lead to more denials.

https://twitter.com/USCIS/status/1328722668372287488

Today's update to the @USCIS Policy Manual adopts the Trump administration's general attitude that legal immigrants are only here on forbearance, with a status that can be taken away any time. Check out the new "Purpose" section.

Old New

The old language is still there, it's just now buried after the brand new section on "rights and responsibilities" of people on green cards, in which point number one notes that the status can be taken away—which is true, of course. But the choice of emphasis here is notable.

Here is the entire relevant section of the USCIS Policy Manual on the use of discretion in adjudicating adjustment of status applications (people seeking green cards from inside the US). It wasn't a particularly long section.

As the next tweet shows, that no longer the case.

In the update, @USCIS has quietly implemented a huge list of "positive" and "negative" factors for adjudicators of green card applications.

Some of these are stunning. USCIS now wants officers to use an applicant's lack of close family in the US as a negative factor??

The legal basis for some of these "negative" discretionary factors is ridiculous

Take the one I just mentioned: "Absence of close family, community, and residence ties," now a "negative discretionary factor."

It cites a 1978 BIA case that has nothing to do with adjustment.

USCIS also now makes explicitly clear what people have been saying for a while—if you are seeking an immigration benefit such as a green card, do NOT work in the legal marijuana industry, which remains illegal federally.