Washington

TheUS Citizenship and Immigration Services will introduce a revised application form for permanent residence next month, warning that older editions submitted after the change takes effect will be rejected.

The new edition of Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, will be published on September 18, USCIS said in an official notification.

Form I-485 is used by eligible applicants already present in the United States to seek lawful permanent resident status, commonly known as a Green Card.

The change is expected to be closely watched by Indian nationals pursuing employment- and family-based permanent residence, including applicants who have waited years for an immigrant visa number to become available.

USCIS said the revised form carries an edition date of September 18, 2026, and will replace the edition dated January 20, 2025.

The agency has provided applicants and immigration lawyers with a preview of the new form and its accompanying instructions. It stressed that there will be no grace period during which both editions will be accepted.

Applicants must therefore determine which edition to use according to the date on which their application is postmarked or submitted electronically.

USCIS will continue accepting the January 20, 2025, edition when it is postmarked or electronically submitted before September 18.

However, the agency will reject that edition if it is postmarked or electronically submitted on or after September 18. Conversely, applicants should not submit the new edition before the effective date. USCIS will accept the September 18, 2026, edition only when it is postmarked or electronically filed on or after that date.

The narrow transition makes the filing date particularly important for applicants and their lawyers. Using the wrong edition could result in rejection of the application before USCIS considers its merits.

The revised Form I-485 has been prepared to align the adjustment-of-status process with the recently announced final rule concerning the public-charge ground of inadmissibility, USCIS said.

The public-charge provision is used to assess whether an applicant is likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence. Its application has changed under successive US administrations and has frequently become a contested element of immigration policy.

USCIS did not announce a separate change in the filing date or fee in the notification. It directed applicants to consult the Form I-485 webpage for the preview edition and detailed instructions.

Indian professionals constitute a significant portion of the employment-based immigration system, particularly in technology, medicine, engineering and other specialised fields. Many experience prolonged waits for permanent residence because annual immigrant visa limits include per-country ceilings.

Applicants filing Form I-485 may also seek related employment and travel authorisation while their permanent residence cases remain pending. An earlier rule only considered two types of public benefits as grounds for denying a green card application: cash assistance for income maintenance and long-term institutionalisation at the government's expense.

To make public charge inadmissibility determinations, USCIS officers will consider the five statutory factors and any other factor relevant to assessing the alien's likelihood at any time of becoming a public charge, including the alien’s receipt of means-tested public benefits, such as cash assistance for income maintenance, housing assistance, food stamps, financial aid for college, or any other similar benefit,” an official statement said.

The guidance follows the Department of Homeland Security's decision to rescind the 2022 Biden-era public charge regulations. The final rule was announced on July 16 and published in the Federal Register on July 20. It will apply to Forms I-485 seeking permanent residence or adjustment of status that are postmarked or electronically submitted on or after September 18. The new rule allows USCIS officers to count age, health, family status, finances, educational background, and even the use of public benefits by an applicant’s dependents, regardless of that dependent's status, against that applicant’s chances for approval. If a USCIS officer finds that an alien applying for adjustment of status to that of a lawful permanent resident in the United States is inadmissible only because they are likely at any time to become a public charge, the USCIS officer may invite the alien to post a public charge bond.

"The public charge rule would provide even more discretion to officers to deny adjustment of status applications in light of the USCIS memo that indicates that adjustment of status requires extraordinary discretion,” according to an analysis by immigration attorneys Cyrus Mehta and Damira Zhanatova. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organisation working in healthcare, about 13.5 million Medicaid or CHIP enrollees live with at least one non-citizen, including 5.6 million citizen children, who may be at risk for decreased enrollment. The analysis found that between 1.4 million and 4.1 million Medicaid and CHIP enrollees living with a noncitizen might quit the programme due to the new public charge rule. However, a large number of applicants are exempt from the new public charge rule. The exemptions include refugees and asylees, certain Afghan and Iraqi nationals who worked with or for the US government, certain Cuban and Haitian entrants, special immigrant juveniles, victims of human trafficking, victims of qualifying criminal activity, certain Violence Against Women Act self-petitioners and applicants for Temporary Protected Status, among others. Of the nearly 1.2 million people who received a green card in 2023, about 78,100 (7 per cent) were from India.