Those targeted in this article are spouses of US citizens that had entered the US on ESTA and allowed that status to lapse whilst awaiting their AOS.

That was tolerated previously.

It does appear that these arrests have stopped since the NYT article was written.

That’s misinformation. They’re being arrested because they were in the country illegally, usually overstaying a visa: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/green-card...

They have a green card interview because they married an American. But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.

I havent been through the US process in a while, but usually that is allowed if your application is processing. You just can’t leave the country.

No, if your visa expires you need to maintain your legal status while a PERM application is pending: https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/maintain... (“This is especially important if and when you are waiting to apply for lawful permanent residence, commonly called a ‘green card.’ If you are in the United States without any immigration status, you are considered to be here illegally, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may deny your green card application for that reason alone.”).

What’s happening here is that these people were here on tourist visas or completely illegally. Then at some point they married a U.S. citizen and filed a PERM application. But that filing doesn’t protect them from deportation for their original illegal status.

> What’s happening here is that these people were here on tourist visas or completely illegally. Then at some point they married a U.S. citizen and filed a PERM application.

There's no PERM process in family based adjustment of status. You're confusing FB AOS with EB AOS.

>But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.

This is both right and wrong. Congress passed a law ages ago that grants forgiveness to overstaying spouses once the greencard is issued. The AOS process is allowed.

The hole however is the AOS does not extend your authorized stay if you were out of status when it was filed. So this leaves one vulnerable to the ICE arrests.

However, your AOS can still be processed even when arrested because of the forgiveness granted by law, so it just becomes an issue of having a good lawyer to get a judge to intervene.

The relevant provisions are subsections (a), (c), and (e) of 8 USC 1255: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim...

Subsection (a) allows the “Attorney General, in his discretion” to grant an adjustment of status.

Subsection (c) categorically denies adjustment of status under certain conditions, including where someone has violated the terms of their visa. This takes away the Attorney General’s discretion to grant an adjustment. The adjustment must be denied.

Subsection (e) then makes subsection (c) inapplicable where the immigrant enters into a bona fide marriage during a legal proceeding regarding their immigrant status. It’s not correct to call this a “forgiveness,” because it doesn’t guarantee you any sort of legal status. Instead, it takes away what would otherwise be a categorical bar against an adjustment of status. That puts you back under subsection (a), where the decision is made by the “Attorney General, in his discretion.” The law says the Attorney can grant you the adjustment of status, not that he must. Under the law, the Attorney General can still categorically deny any adjustments under those circumstances.

Exactly. Unauthorized work is also forgiven.