President Trump has issued an Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization, which has several significant U.S. immigration consequences for foreign nationals born in Hong Kong. The most significant impact is on green card wait times. Since the enactment of the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, the United States government has treated Hong Kong as a separate country from China for immigration purposes. This was especially beneficial in the green card context since wait times for individuals born in mainland China to receive a green card can often be 4-10 years, if not longer. Because Hong Kong was not considered part of mainland China, it got to benefit from much shorter, if any, wait times applicable to individuals generally classified under “All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed”.
As such, those with pending adjustment of status applications can now likely expect those applications to remain pending for years before they will ultimately be adjudicated. Similarly Hong Kong born nationals who were previously “current” under the July 2020 visa bulletin and completing the final steps of immigrant visa processing may be prevented from doing so depending on how the Department of State ultimately ends up implementing the changes outlined in the Executive Order.
In addition to the impact on green card wait times for Hong Kong born nationals, the Executive Order also removes any special treatment give to Hong Kong nationals as a separate country for purposes of eligibility for the Diversity Visa, eligibility for the Visa Waiver Program, and for purposes of visa reciprocity.
The Executive Order instructs government agencies within 15 days to amend any impacted regulations to remove treatment previously given to Hong Kong that differed from that given to mainland China. Thus, the details and timing of how these changes will be implemented are still to be seen.
D&S will continue to monitor how the impacted agencies implement the directives under this Order and provide updates as they become available.