Big impact for NRIs: Green Card applicants' kids may lose legal status after Trump admin shifts age rule
Policy shift aligns with US State Department’s Final Action Dates, raising risks for children in visa backlogs from India, China.
- Aug 9, 2025,
- Updated Aug 9, 2025 11:00 PM IST
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a major policy update clarifying that, for the purposes of the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) age calculation, a visa will now be considered “available” based on the Final Action Dates chart of the Department of State’s Visa Bulletin.
The change takes effect for requests filed on or after August 15, 2025, and aims to align USCIS and the Department of State in using the same standard, ensuring consistent treatment of applicants for both adjustment of status and immigrant visas.
Applicants with adjustment of status cases pending before the August 15, 2025, cutoff will still benefit from the earlier February 14, 2023, policy, which in some cases used the more favorable Dates for Filing chart. USCIS says this carve-out is to account for those who may have relied on the old rules when filing.
The CSPA was enacted to protect certain unmarried children under 21 from “aging out” of eligibility for lawful permanent residence due to visa processing delays. However, the revised rule will tighten eligibility: children must still seek permanent residency within one year of visa availability, unless they can prove “extraordinary circumstances.”
Immigration advocates say the change could have a severe impact on children of high-skilled immigrants from countries with the longest backlogs, particularly India and China. Deedy, a venture capitalist at Menlo Ventures, warned on X (formerly Twitter): “Children of Indian/Chinese H-1B workers in the US not born in the US and stuck in a long multi-decade backlog will no longer qualify for a green card when they hit 21 and ‘age out’, losing their legal status. This is quite cruel. These are young, culturally American children.”
The update underscores the high stakes in the decades-long visa queues, where children in immigrant families risk falling out of legal status despite growing up in the United States.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a major policy update clarifying that, for the purposes of the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) age calculation, a visa will now be considered “available” based on the Final Action Dates chart of the Department of State’s Visa Bulletin.
The change takes effect for requests filed on or after August 15, 2025, and aims to align USCIS and the Department of State in using the same standard, ensuring consistent treatment of applicants for both adjustment of status and immigrant visas.
Applicants with adjustment of status cases pending before the August 15, 2025, cutoff will still benefit from the earlier February 14, 2023, policy, which in some cases used the more favorable Dates for Filing chart. USCIS says this carve-out is to account for those who may have relied on the old rules when filing.
The CSPA was enacted to protect certain unmarried children under 21 from “aging out” of eligibility for lawful permanent residence due to visa processing delays. However, the revised rule will tighten eligibility: children must still seek permanent residency within one year of visa availability, unless they can prove “extraordinary circumstances.”
Immigration advocates say the change could have a severe impact on children of high-skilled immigrants from countries with the longest backlogs, particularly India and China. Deedy, a venture capitalist at Menlo Ventures, warned on X (formerly Twitter): “Children of Indian/Chinese H-1B workers in the US not born in the US and stuck in a long multi-decade backlog will no longer qualify for a green card when they hit 21 and ‘age out’, losing their legal status. This is quite cruel. These are young, culturally American children.”
The update underscores the high stakes in the decades-long visa queues, where children in immigrant families risk falling out of legal status despite growing up in the United States.