US green card process shift forces overseas applications, deepening systemic barriers to migration and family reunification
Original framing: “US green card applicants will now have to return to home countries to apply, DHS says” — The Guardian - World
US immigration policy has long been a tool of racial exclusion, from the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) to the 1924 Immigration Act, which codified quotas based on national origin. The green card process itself emerged from the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, designed to limit migration from Southern and Eastern Europe. This policy continues that legacy by prioritizing procedural barriers over humanitarian needs, reflecting a historical pattern of using bureaucracy to enforce racial hierarchies.
The US green card policy shift is not an isolated bureaucratic change but a symptom of deeper systemic forces: the securitization of migration under neoliberalism, the erasure of indigenous and Global South epistemologies, and the historical continuity of racial exclusion in immigration law.
By forcing applicants to navigate overseas processing, the policy reinforces a colonial paradigm where migration is a privilege to be earned rather than a human right to be upheld. This aligns with broader trends in climate policy, where Global South migrants—disproportionately affected by environmental crises—are treated as 'security threats' rather than communities in need of solidarity. The solution lies in dismantling these structures through decolonial policy design, climate justice frameworks, and community-led sponsorship models that center marginalized voices. Actors like the UN, diaspora organizations, and indigenous legal scholars must co-create alternatives, while the US must confront its role in destabilizing the very regions it now seeks to control through immigration barriers.