Greencard Renewal Application

Here is something "nice" that the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") is now supposed to do:

In a February 6, 2009 memo, the Acting Associate Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS") announced that the USCIS must now immediately process Form I-90, even if the lawful permanent resident ("LPR") is subject to removal proceedings as a result of a criminal conviction.

This is an important policy change. Form I-90 is used by a lawful permanent resident to renew an expiring alien registration card ("ARC"). Typically, an ARC is valid for a period of 10 years and is physical evidence that the bearer of the ARC is a lawful permanent resident of the United States. Before the ARC expires, the alien must file Form I-90 to renew it. However, in the past, if the alien was convicted of a crime after he or she became an LPR and prior to the renewal of the ARC, DHS asked the alien to submit a certificate of disposition for the conviction. If the coviction was one that rendered the alien "removable" or "inadmissible," DHS used to commence removal proceedings against the alien without renewing the alien's ARC.

As immigration lawyers, we never understood why the DHS refused to renew the ARC if an alien was removable or inadmissible. Our position has always been that an ARC is only the physical evidence that the holder of the card is an LPR. An LPR can only "lose" the status in a few ways: (1) abandonment of the status; (2) an order of removal from an immigration judge and/or the Board of Immigration Appeals; and (3) rescission of the LPR status by the USCIS on the basis of fraud. The fact that an alien may be removable or inadmissible has nothing to do with whether the DHS should be able to renew the ARC. So, logically, the fact that the DHS would not renew the ARC did not mean that the person lost his or her status as an LPR; it only meant that he or she would no longer have proof of his or her valid status through a renewed ARC. In reality, though, this caused many problems, such as the inability to find or keep a job because of employers who were unwilling to hire or keep employees who could not produce a valid ARC, or the ability of the alien to obtain basic, necessary things, such as a driver's license.

The February 6, 2009 memo instructs the DHS to process immediately the I-90 form upon the establishment of identity and the fact that the alien is indeed and LPR. Of course, the DHS can scrutinize the LPR further if it believes that the LPR is removable and should be placed in removal proceedings, but the DHS can only do this after it processes the I-90 first.

While it isn't a "perfect" system and there is likely to be some "oversight" of this new policy, we are hopeful that the USCIS will honor this policy, so that hardworking LPRs will not have to be in limbo and without a renewed ARC until DHS decides (sometimes months later), whether to commence removal proceedings.

-Ruchi Thaker