White House Green Card Overhaul and Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical
The White House has announced sweeping changes to the US green card process, requiring most immigrants to apply for permanent residency from outside the country, while Pope Leo XIV has released a landmark encyclical warning that artificial intelligence must be “disarmed” to protect humanity. These two major stories dominated the news landscape on May 26, 2026.
Green Card Policy Shift
On May 22, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy memo mandating that most immigrants seeking a green card must now leave the United States and apply through consular processing at a US embassy or consulate abroad, rather than applying while remaining in the country through “adjustment of status.”
According to BBC News, the move closes a loophole that had allowed visa holders and visitors to apply for a green card while still in the US. The Department of Homeland Security declared on X that “the era of abusing our nation’s immigration system is over.”
USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said the policy would allow the immigration system “to function as the law intended instead of incentivising loopholes.” However, critics warn the change will disrupt hundreds of thousands of families. Michael Valverde, a former senior USCIS official, told CBS News that the announcement is “a largely unprecedented move that will limit lawful immigration to the US greatly.”
The policy disproportionately affects Indian professionals on H-1B visas who have been in years-long green card backlogs. Ajay Bhutoria, a former White House advisor, warned that over 1.2 million Indian-American families could face uncertainty, noting that the memo grants officers “unchecked discretion” to deny domestic applications.
Notably, hours after the announcement, USCIS partially walked back the policy, inserting exceptions for cases involving “economic benefit” or “national interest” — though these terms remain undefined, creating further uncertainty for applicants.
Pope Leo’s Landmark AI Encyclical
On May 25, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” making him the first pope to dedicate an entire encyclical to the dangers and ethics of artificial intelligence.
The approximately 43,000-word document, unveiled at the Vatican alongside Christopher Olah, co-founder of the AI company Anthropic, warns against “a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets” driven by geopolitical or commercial ambitions.
As Al Jazeera reported, the pope called for AI to be “disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion, and death.” He compared AI to nuclear energy, insisting it “must be at the service of all and of the common good.”
The encyclical addresses several critical areas. On warfare, the pope declared it “not permissible to entrust lethal decisions to technology” and called the “just war” theory espoused by the Trump administration “outdated,” adding that “no algorithm can make war morally acceptable.” This comes as the US military confirmed in March that it is using AI tools in operations against Iran.
On the economic front, the pope warned about widespread job losses due to AI automation, noting that Amazon laid off 16,000 employees in January 2026 due to AI and has plans to replace more than half a million jobs with robots. He also called on policymakers to protect children from AI-powered technologies, citing UNICEF warnings about AI-generated child sexual abuse material.
The Vatican-Anthropic Connection
The encyclical’s unveiling highlighted the deepening relationship between the Vatican and Anthropic, the AI safety company founded by former OpenAI employees. Since January 2026, Anthropic has hosted conversations with religious leaders and ethicists, and the company published Claude’s new constitution with input from faith leaders. However, critics including Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology have raised concerns about “ethics washing,” warning that Anthropic’s presence at the Vatican may lend legitimacy to systems that remain difficult to control.
Historic Apology for Slavery
In a historic move within the same document, Pope Leo XIV “sincerely asked for pardon” for the Vatican’s role in 15th-century directives that authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave non-Christians. Historian Shannen Dee Williams called this a “monumental step toward the essential truth-telling and reparation that many Catholics have prayed and worked to witness.”
What to Watch
The green card policy faces likely legal challenges given its unprecedented nature, while the undefined “economic benefit” and “national interest” exceptions leave millions in limbo. Meanwhile, the pope’s encyclical positions the Catholic Church as a major global voice on AI ethics, potentially influencing regulation as governments worldwide grapple with the technology’s rapid advancement.