Lynden Melmed was supposed to be spending part of his Friday with family visiting from Germany. They were touring the Capitol and learning how the American government works during the long holiday weekend.
Then, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services released a memo about green card applicants. Melmed, a partner at BAL and former US Citizenship and Immigration Services chief counsel, stayed behind to read it and field client questions.
“You do unfortunately need to clear your schedule,” Melmed said. “That’s just an occupational hazard of being an immigration lawyer.”
On Friday, USCIS announced that it would grant “adjustment of status” — the process that lets some immigrants in the US apply for green cards without leaving — only in “extraordinary circumstances.”
The decision could force many immigrants to leave the country and continue their green card applications abroad rather than completing the process in the US.
A USCIS spokesperson, Zach Kahler, said on Friday that the new guidance likely wouldn’t impact “people who present applications that provide an economic benefit or otherwise are in the national interest.”
Business Insider spoke with six immigration lawyers across the US who work with tech workers, startup founders, physicians, investors, and other foreign national workers. They described a holiday weekend packed with calls, texts, and emails from anxious clients trying to understand whether yearslong green-card plans had changed overnight.
The questions were practical: Should workers keep filing green-card applications? Should they wait? Would pending cases be affected? Should people avoid international travel?
Companies were also asking whether this was serious enough to brief senior executives immediately.
For now, the answer was a cautious wait-and-see.
“I started hearing from my clients and from other immigration attorneys within minutes of this memo dropping on Friday morning,” said Loren Locke, an immigration attorney who works with multinational corporate clients. “It has thrown a lot of uncertainty into something that’s been very stable and very predictable for decades, out of nowhere, with no warning.”
Brian Hunt, counsel at immigration firm Fragomen, said his company began hearing from clients on Friday and “pretty much worked all weekend.”
“Everyone wants answers as to what this memo means,” he said.
For employers, the concern is not abstract. Consular processing can be slow and unpredictable, lawyers said, and companies may struggle if workers have to leave the US without knowing when they can return.
“I don’t know how people could just leave their job for months and come back,” Hunt said.
Multiple lawyers compared the rollout to a September presidential proclamation signed by President Donald Trump that raised the H-1B petition fee to $100,000, which sparked immediate alarm before later guidance softened its apparent impact.
Several attorneys also said Friday’s announcement appeared more severe than the underlying memo.
At Bay Immigration Law, which works with startup founders and tech workers, Otto Van Maerssen said many existing clients were seeking reassurance. “For some of them, it was, is it even possible now to adjust status?” Van Maerssen, a senior partner, said.
TJ Albrecht, another Bay Immigration attorney, estimated that client outreach surged over the long weekend. He said the firm’s reaction oscillated between “dread and optimism” as lawyers compared the memo with the USCIS press release announcing the change.
“So, we think that the vast majority, at least from our clients, will ultimately not be affected,” he said. Other visa applicants — like students and B-1 temporary business visitors — might not be so lucky.
Divij Kishore, founder of the immigration-focused firm Flagship Law, said clients asked whether they should continue with green-card applications, what would happen to pending cases, and whether staying in the US still made sense.
“There’s a sense of fatigue that I’m starting to see in the people that I represent,” Kishore said. “I’m concerned that in the way that it’s been released to the public and the way it’s been reported to the public so far, there’s a knee-jerk reaction that’s happening where people are acting out of fear rather than proactive decision-making and thoughtful decision-making.”
Locke said the memo arrived at the end of a yearslong process for some workers who had followed the rules, renewed visas, built careers, and started families in the US.
“It has been chaotic,” she said. “Right now, we are waiting to see what USCIS does.”
USCIS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
