What’s Happening

On Friday, May 29, 2026, one week after issuing a Policy Memorandum (“PM”) directing that consular processing should be the primary path to permanent residence and characterizing adjustment of status as an “extraordinary act of administrative grace,” USCIS appears to be walking back the PM's sweeping implications for how adjustment of status applications are adjudicated.

As reported by The New York Times and other major media outlets, an unnamed agency spokesperson clarified on Friday that the PM was not meant to be a blanket change in how adjustment of status applications are adjudicated but, instead was “just a reminder to officers of their discretionary authority, which has always existed on a case-by-case basis.”