Column: An Era When Green Card Interviews End in Handcuffs

Marriage-based green card interviews have long been seen by immigrants as a “safe final gate.” There was a belief that if you entered legally and built a family with a U.S. citizen, there was an institutional pathway to straighten out your immigration status. There was also a strong perception that going to court or visiting an immigration office was a place of protection, not enforcement.

But the recent conduct of federal immigration authorities is shaking that belief head-on. Now, the green card interview is no longer a door to legalization, but a “crackdown checkpoint” that can lead to arrest.

The case of Korean immigrant Tae-ha Hwang (38) symbolically shows this shift. Having come to the United States at three months old and, for all practical purposes, grown up in America, he went on October 29 with his U.S. citizen wife, Xelena Diaz (29), to an immigration office in downtown LA. He expected that once he completed the marriage-based green card interview, he could finally sort out his unstable status and continue a normal family life. The couple had even made plans to hold a wedding ceremony in Korea next year.

The interview proceeded no differently than it would for any other couple. They were asked questions together, and then each underwent a separate interview. But once Hwang finished the interview he did alone, the situation changed abruptly. What came in, instead of the examiner who had left the room, were officers from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) carrying handcuffs. Hwang was arrested on the spot.

The reason Hwang was arrested was neither a criminal record nor marriage fraud. The problem was a past “administrative void.” He had received conditional permanent residency through a previous marriage, but during the divorce process he did not file a change of address. Because of that, he did not receive a notice to appear in immigration court to remove the conditions, and without his knowledge an in absentia deportation order was issued. For the single reason that he had not updated his address, he had become an “undocumented immigrant” without even realizing it himself.

That record surfaced during his second green card interview, and the interview immediately turned into enforcement. Hwang had to wait on the floor for more than 30 hours in a temporary holding room without even a bed, and was then transferred to an ICE detention facility. The place he went to prove his marriage led straight into detention.

Hwang’s case is not an extreme exception. According to recently disclosed internal guidance from USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services), a procedure has taken hold in which, just before the end of a green card interview, an examiner is to pass an applicant’s information to ICE. The method is to screen, before the interview, for people who could be subject to arrest, then deploy officers after the questioning ends. According to attorneys, cases have also been occurring one after another in which people were taken in immediately after receiving a decision approving their green card.

In the past, it was effectively taboo for someone to be arrested at a green card interview solely for an expired visa or an administrative mistake. But now, a failure to update an address, an old application record that was never fully cleaned up, or even a deportation order you did not know existed becomes a pretext for arrest. That is why critics say the green card interview is being used as “bait to arrest undocumented immigrants.” As a result, anxiety is spreading across immigrant communities that “going to the green card interview itself is dangerous.”

This change delivers a clear warning to immigrants. It means that marriage to a U.S. citizen is no longer a shield. Before applying for a green card, you must check your past immigration history from beginning to end. You must confirm, through your A-number (immigrant registration number), whether you filed change-of-address notices on time, whether any prior immigration applications were terminated halfway through, and whether immigration court records still contain orders to appear or deportation orders. Even old records you can barely remember can shake your current life in an instant.

In today’s U.S. immigration reality, a change of address is not a formality but a “matter of survival.” And a green card interview is no longer a process you can feel safe about. For an unprepared applicant, that place can become the most dangerous moment.

BY MOOYOUNG LEE [lee.mooyoung@koreadaily.com]