But other articles had mentioned some of the people involved were out of status which was what I was basing my post on. I should’ve linked that.

Yes, sorry, my wording wasn’t exact and it can be a minefield with all of the different scenarios people can be in when navigating this situation. You’re right, authorised stay != out of status. From the article, I believe they claimed everyone detained had overstayed a tourist or business visa

The term authorised stay is very misleading as it makes it seem like you’re safe once you apply but you aren’t. In practice, it just means you no longer accrue days overstayed which affects any bar to returning to the USA you might receive later on (a 1 year bar, a 10 year bar, etc)

Authorised stay and your visa status count as two different things though. You could apply to adjust, your visa expires while you wait and while you are in authorised stay, you’re still out of status and still deportable. Of course, your type of visa you were on affects your path forward greatly tho

The other thing is that if you entered legally under the visa waiver program, the most common tourist visa, you’re eligible to adjust as enshrined in law but if detained, you don’t get to see a judge and no chance to complete your adjustment at all, even if you are totally eligible. It’s ridiculous.

If they overstayed, are married to a US citizen (which legally cures the overstay if approved), have no criminal record and have gone though the full legal process, paid fees and taxes, etc then how does it make any sense to do this to people? The law says you can adjust status, so let it happen.

I’m in this boat and terrified. I can’t help but wonder if there’s some kind of legal challenge that can be brought to stop them abducting people at these interviews. They may be out of status, but is it not interfering with due process, statutory rights, etc by doing this in bad faith?

As someone in a very similar situation as this woman I’m absolutely terrified and don’t know how to proceed anymore

There is a point to applying for immigration applications and to fighting your immigration court case. What I am saying is that I don’t believe the federal courts will stop the things Trump and his administration plan to do completely or at all and certainly not before a lot of people are harmed.

Cheers mate. Yeah, got to do what you can to keep yourself safe out here. Trying to get all my ducks in a row before January 20th but not sure if it'll pan out.

I don't want to give away any identifying info, but I don't want people to think I'm a bot so that's why I'm writing this post.

I genuinely want to stay with my family, and I'm hoping venting here will help me thru the process. It's so lonely not being able to discuss your status.