Who will be impacted by Trump's executive order "suspending immigration"?
In the evening of Wednesday, April 22, 2020, President Trump signed the Executive Order “Suspending immigration” that he had announced two days previously. After reviewing the text of the signed executive order, I would say that it could have been much worse because the final executive order contains many exemptions and hidden loopholes.
First off, the executive order has no impact on U.S. permanent residents or conditional permanent residents, regardless of whether they are currently located inside the U.S. or outside. This includes those conditional permanent residents in the process of removing conditions from their permanent residence under the I-829 or I-751 petition process.
The executive order impacts the spouses and children under 21 years of age of U.S. permanent residents, who are located outside of the U.S. and are currently awaiting an appointment for interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad in connection with their immigrant visa application. The executive order will block them from receiving an appointment for the 60-day period that it will be in effect, and possibly longer if President Trump renews the executive order. That being said, these immigrants are already blocked from obtaining an immigrant interview appointment due to the fact that U.S. embassies and consulates around the world have shut down immigrant and non-immigrant visa processing until further notice due to the Coronavirus Crisis. Also, the spouses and children under 21 years of age of U.S. permanent residents, who are currently in the U.S. in some other visa status and are eligible to apply for adjustment of status to permanent residence inside the U.S. can still do so. I would also point out that there is no reference to stopping the processing of the I-130 petitions for the spouses and children under 21 years of age of U.S. permanent residents or even the consular processing of the immigrant visa up until the point of having an interview appointment scheduled.
The executive order also impacts employment-based immigrants in the EB-1 to EB-4 categories, who are outside of the U.S. pursuing an immigrant visa through a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. There is an exemption to this for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, since they can be enlisted in the treatment of Coronavirus patients, as well as for medical researchers involved in researched related to the Coronavirus, and their spouse and children under 21 years of age. Immigrants in the EB-1 to EB-4 categories, who are currently in the U.S. in some other visa status and are eligible to apply for adjustment of status to permanent residence inside the U.S. can still do so. Moreover, immigrants inside the U.S. who have an on-going immigration process, including a labor certification application, an I-140 petition can continue to pursue those processes. Even the consular processing of the immigrant visa could continue up to the point of when an interview appointment would normally be scheduled.
Notably, the executive order specifically exempts EB-5 investors from its impact, regardless of whether they are located inside or outside of the U.S., and so all of their immigration processes will continue without interruption.
As noted in the previous article, all non-immigrant visas are exempted from the impact of the executive order. However, the executive order does leave open the door to a subsequent review of whether certain non-immigrant visa categories would be blocked under a future executive order.
The spouses and children under 21 years of age of U.S. citizens are exempted from the executive order. However, U.S. citizens’ parents, siblings, and the siblings’ family members are not exempted from the executive order, if they are located outside of the U.S. and going through immigrant visa process through a U.S. embassy or consulate.
There are other exemptions for the family members of members of the U.S. armed forces, as well as for specific categories of people deemed important to the U.S. Defense Department or to law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
In summary, while President Trump’s executive order “suspending immigration” will, unfortunately, delay some immigrants’ immigration processes through U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, it might not delay them much more than they are already being delayed by those same U.S. embassies and consulates being closed for visa processing due to the Coronavirus Crisis. Otherwise, the effects of the executive order are not nearly as bad as it had seemed based on the broad and ambiguous wording of President Trump’s tweet on Monday evening. As a result, I believe that it is unlikely that there will be any major legal challenges to the executive order, since those impacted by it would likely not have had an interview appointment in the next 60 days, anyway. However, if Trump renews the executive order for another 60 days, and another 60 days beyond that, then frustrated applicants and their employers might decide to challenge the renewal of the executive order. Also, most people and businesses are conserving their financial resources, and will probably not want to spend on expensive federal court litigation.
You can view the text of the executive order, on CNN.com:
READ: Trump's order to temporarily halt immigration amid coronavirus outbreak