Green card revocation rules examined after Afghan shooting incident

After an Afghan asylee allegedly shot two West Virginia National Guardsmen on Wednesday, President Donald Trump ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow to commence a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination” of green-card holders from “countries of concern.”

The directive highlights the legal avenues through which a green card — lawful permanent residence granted through an Adjustment of Status application — can be withdrawn, and those through which it cannot.

There are several major ways lawful permanent residency can be revoked.

Several immigration law firms — including Sedki and Rebecca Black — cite similar orders and descriptions on their sites, and related details appear across various federal webpages, but Fox News Digital did not find any single official source that consolidates them.

First, green-card holders can be placed in removal proceedings if they are convicted of certain crimes – including “aggravated felonies” such as murder, some serious sex and drug-trafficking offenses, as well as crimes involving moral turpitude like certain theft, fraud or violent-offense convictions, depending on the sentence and timing.

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They can also lose their green cards over convictions connected to terrorism or espionage for foreign governments. Green-card holders also cannot vote in federal elections, and convictions connected to attempts to do so can also result in revocation of their residency status.

A second basis for withdrawal is evidence that the noncitizen obtained the green card through fraud or misrepresentation.

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Examples include foreign nationals who used identity theft, lied on their applications, or omitted parts of their criminal history or prior contact with U.S. immigration authorities.

USCIS may also revisit Adjustment of Status applications for lawful permanent residents who became such through a marriage that ends in divorce within two years. The agency can revoke a green card if it is found the foreign national married a U.S. citizen strictly in order to achieve residency.

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Home address issues and questions arising out of where – including in which country – a green-card holder truly resides can also be grounds for revocation.

Lawful permanent residents must be just that: people residing permanently in the U.S. with a primary residence stateside.

Leaving the country for more than a year without obtaining a reentry permit can lead the feds to consider a green card abandoned. Changes of address within the U.S. must also be reported to USCIS.

While most people who would fall under the subsection have since died or would be in their 90s at the least, a Cold War provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) bars any noncitizen who, between March 1933 and May 1945, participated in or ordered persecutions under Germany’s Nazi regime or in German-occupied territories.

Relatedly, any immigrant who has been affiliated with communism or any “totalitarian party” in another country, is also banned from holding a green card.

One avenue the Trump administration, however, may pursue as it commences a full-scale review of green-card holders from Afghanistan and other “countries of concern” is the final major way residency status may be questioned or revoked: what some firms describe as the public charge rule.

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According to various immigration law firms’ websites, such residents relying too heavily on public assistance and government programs may find themselves in removal proceedings if they are “deemed a public charge” under the law – but with a key caveat.

Under the INA, simply receiving public benefits does not make a noncitizen deportable. They must have become a public charge within five years of admission “from causes not affirmatively shown to have arisen since entry.” This standard is rarely invoked.

Additionally, relevant to Trump’s Afghan example, any noncitizen previously arrested or deported from the U.S., or removed as an “enemy” or at government expense in lieu of deportation, may not hold a green card.

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Sections of the INA finalized in 1995 and 2025 also list other grounds of inadmissibility or deportability.

A noncitizen with a communicable disease of “public health significance” can be denied status, as can those with a “mental disorder” posing a threat, or individuals deemed “drug addicts.” Polygamy is also a disqualifying factor.

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While many of the Afghan refugees reportedly came with little to no documentation at the time of the mass withdrawal from Kabul, the INA also prescribes that foreign nationals who were never qualified to obtain full citizenship for various reasons are also ineligible for lawful permanent residence.

The administration could, potentially, investigate whether any of the largely unvetted noncitizens have disqualifying history and enforce that subsection of the INA against them.

While former President Joe Biden’s Operation Welcoming Heroes was an official mission, 8 USC Sec 1182(a) 5(d) also lays out how “any alien who is a stowaway is excludable.” That definition would likely be up to legal interpretation, as the current administration signals a no-holds barred audit of current green-card holders.

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Federal law states that immigration officers must state the negative determination to the green-card holder, and list the specific provision under the law that their disqualification or rescission falls under.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, DOJ, DHS and officials at USCIS for comment and clarification on any of the major grounds collected for a green card’s withdrawal.

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In comments to CBS News, Edlow said his agency has followed the president’s order and “halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible. The safety of the American people always comes first.” 

Trump quoted the INA inasmuch as: “Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may, by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”