Can I Adjust My Status While Asylum Is Pending?

You can adjust your status while your asylum case is pending, but only if you separately qualify for a Green Card through another route, most commonly a family petition from a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, or an employer-sponsored petition. Your asylum application and your adjustment application run on independent tracks; filing one does not affect the other. The bigger obstacle for most asylum seekers is not the asylum case itself but a threshold rule in the adjustment statute: you generally must have been inspected and admitted or paroled at a port of entry to adjust status from inside the United States.¹

The Entry Requirement Is the Real Gatekeeper

Federal law requires that you were “inspected and admitted or paroled” at a port of entry before you can adjust status inside the country.¹ If you arrived on a visa, under the visa waiver program, or were paroled in by a border officer, you meet this requirement. Your Form I-94 Arrival/Departure Record documents the entry.²

If you crossed the border without going through an official port of entry, you were not inspected and admitted. That generally blocks you from adjusting status inside the United States no matter how strong your family or employment petition may be. A pending asylum case does not cure the problem.

The Narrow Section 245(i) Exception

One older provision, Section 245(i), lets some people who entered without inspection still adjust. To qualify, you must have been the beneficiary of a qualifying immigrant petition or labor certification application properly filed on or before April 30, 2001.³ A penalty fee applies on top of the standard costs. The 2001 cutoff means fewer people qualify each year, but the option still exists for those who do.

What Else You Need to Adjust

Beyond a lawful entry, three conditions must be met: you were inspected and admitted or paroled, you are eligible for an immigrant visa, and a visa number is immediately available when you file.¹ In practice, that means you need an approved immigrant petition backing your case. Most applicants use Form I-130, filed by a qualifying U.S. citizen or permanent resident family member, or Form I-140, filed by a U.S. employer. Once the petition is approved and a visa number is available, you file Form I-485 to apply for permanent residence.⁴

Visa availability depends on your category and priority date. The Department of State’s monthly Visa Bulletin shows which priority dates are current in each family and employment preference category.⁵ If your date is current, you can file.

Why Immediate Relatives Have an Easier Path

Spouses, unmarried children under 21, and parents of U.S. citizens are “immediate relatives.” Two things make their path much smoother.

First, visa numbers are always available. There is no waiting for a priority date to become current.⁴ Because of this, you can file the I-130 and the I-485 together; USCIS calls this “concurrent filing” and it saves months compared to waiting for petition approval first.⁶

Second, immediate relatives are not subject to the bars that usually block someone who has fallen out of lawful status, worked without authorization, or overstayed a visa.⁷ This matters directly for asylum seekers because a pending asylum case does not, on its own, place you in lawful immigration status. USCIS policy is explicit that simply having a pending benefit application does not put you in status.⁸ So if you entered on a tourist visa, filed for asylum, and the tourist visa later expired, you are technically out of status even though the asylum case is pending. For a sibling petition or many employment-based preference categories, that status gap can block adjustment. For immediate relatives, it does not.

Where You File Depends on Your Asylum Posture

If your affirmative asylum case is still with the USCIS Asylum Office and has not been referred, you are not in removal proceedings, and you file Form I-485 directly with USCIS.

If your asylum case was referred to an immigration judge, or if you were placed in removal proceedings for any other reason, jurisdiction over your adjustment can shift. Under federal regulations, USCIS generally has jurisdiction over I-485 applications, but an immigration judge takes over once removal proceedings begin, with some exceptions for arriving aliens.⁹ If USCIS denies your adjustment and you are not an arriving alien, you can renew it before the immigration judge in removal proceedings.

Some applicants in removal proceedings ask the government to terminate or dismiss the case so USCIS can adjudicate the I-485 instead. That typically requires a request for prosecutorial discretion or an argument that the charging document was defective, and whether the strategy is realistic depends on current ICE enforcement priorities and the specifics of your case.

What to File and What It Costs

The core application is Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status.¹⁰ A complete package generally includes:

Form I-797 approval notice for your I-130 or I-140, unless you are filing concurrently with the petition.⁴
Proof of lawful entry, such as a copy of your I-94 or parole document.
Identity and civil documents, including a government-issued photo ID such as a passport, plus your birth certificate.
Two passport-style photographs meeting USCIS specifications.
Form I-693 medical examination, completed by a USCIS-designated civil surgeon and given to you in a sealed envelope. Do not open it; USCIS rejects opened or altered envelopes.¹¹
Form I-864 Affidavit of Support from the petitioning sponsor. This is required for all family-based adjustments and for employment-based cases where the petitioning employer is a relative or a relative holds a significant ownership interest in the petitioning entity.¹²

The I-485 filing fee is $1,440 for paper filing or $1,375 through a USCIS online account. Biometrics are included in that fee. The medical exam is paid separately to the civil surgeon and typically runs $200 to $800 depending on the provider and the vaccinations you need.

Fee waivers exist but only for limited categories. You can request one on Form I-912 if you are adjusting based on asylum status, registry (continuous residence since before January 1, 1972), or another category exempt from the public charge grounds of inadmissibility. The waiver request has to be submitted together with your I-485; it cannot be added after USCIS receives the application.¹³

Inadmissibility Can Still Sink the Case

Even with an approved petition and a properly filed I-485, USCIS can deny your adjustment if you are inadmissible. Common issues include health-related grounds (which is what the I-693 medical exam addresses), certain criminal convictions, fraud or misrepresentation in an immigration filing, and unlawful presence bars.

One boundary worth flagging even though it is not part of the filing itself: if you leave the country after accumulating more than 180 days of unlawful presence, you can trigger a three-year or ten-year bar on returning.¹⁴ The safe course while your adjustment is pending is not to leave the United States without advance parole, and to get legal advice before any travel.

How the Two Cases Interact While You Wait

Filing for adjustment does not cancel, pause, or weaken your pending asylum case. The two proceed independently, and you must keep meeting every obligation on the asylum side: attending asylum interviews, appearing at immigration court hearings if your case was referred, and responding to any notices. If you skip an asylum hearing because you assume the adjustment will go through, and the adjustment is later denied, you can end up with an in absentia removal order and no protection at all.

If the adjustment is approved, you become a lawful permanent resident through whichever category sponsored you, and you no longer need the asylum claim. You can withdraw the asylum application by sending a written request to whichever body is handling it, either the USCIS Asylum Office or the immigration court. Wait until you physically have the Green Card in hand before withdrawing anything. Approvals occasionally get reversed, and there is no reason to give up your safety net early.

If the adjustment is denied, the asylum case remains your primary path to staying in the United States. That is precisely why keeping both cases active in parallel matters. A denial does not automatically start removal proceedings if you are not already in them, but it does close off one route to permanent status, which makes the asylum claim that much more important.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1255 – Adjustment of Status of Nonimmigrant to That of Person Admitted for Permanent Residence
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, Information for Completing USCIS Forms
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 7, Part C, Chapter 2 – Grandfathering Requirements
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-485 Instructions
5
U.S. Department of State. The Visa Bulletin
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Concurrent Filing of Form I-485
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 7, Part B, Chapter 8 – Inapplicability of Bars to Adjustment
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 7, Part B, Chapter 3 – Unlawful Immigration Status at Time of Filing
9
eCFR. 8 CFR 245.2 – Application
10
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. About Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination Record
12
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 8, Part G, Chapter 6 – Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA
13
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-912, Request for Fee Waiver
14
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Unlawful Presence and Inadmissibility