The Trump administration just announced that noncitizens sitting in the United States on temporary visas who want green cards need to leave the country and apply from home through consular processing, like the law always intended. The ACLU declined to comment immediately, which is liberal-speak for "we're drafting the lawsuit as fast as we can."

Imagine the absolute audacity of telling people they have to follow immigration law. In America. Groundbreaking stuff.

USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler laid it out on Friday in terms even a Beltway journalist could understand: "We're returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation's immigration system properly." He continued: "From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a green card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances."

That sound you hear is a million immigration lawyers updating their LinkedIn profiles.

Here's what was happening before. Someone would come in on a student visa, a tourist visa, or a temporary work visa, and then — while already inside the country — file to "adjust their status" to permanent resident. Skip the line. Skip the consulate. Skip the whole process that millions of legal immigrants followed the hard way. It was a backdoor, and everybody in Washington knew it.

"This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes," Kahler said. Read that line again. The government is openly admitting the previous system incentivized loopholes. We've been saying this for years, and now it's official USCIS policy language.

The new rule means that "adjustment of status" — the fancy bureaucratic term for cutting the line from inside the country — will only be granted on a case-by-case basis in "extraordinary circumstances." The vast majority of cases will now be handled by the State Department at U.S. consular offices abroad. You know, the way it's supposed to work.

Maye Musk, Elon's mother and a Canadian immigrant herself, weighed in with a reminder of how the system used to work for people who actually respected the process. "When I wanted to get my green card, I had to have numerous vaccinations, health tests and a lung x-ray," she wrote. "Nothing was easy. It took another five years before I could get citizenship. Worth it."

Five years. Vaccinations. Health tests. Lung x-rays. That's what legal immigration looks like when you don't have an army of activist lawyers gaming the system for you.

The left is going to frame this as cruel, heartless, and probably racist by Monday morning. Lawsuits are expected. But what they won't tell you is that this policy simply sends people back to the same consular process that every legal immigrant in your neighborhood already went through. The only people upset are the ones who thought the rules were optional.

"Following the law allows the majority of these cases to be handled by the State Department at U.S. consular offices abroad," Kahler added, just in case anyone missed the point the first time.

We spent four years under Biden watching the immigration system get turned into a suggestion box. Now there's an administration that actually reads the statute and enforces it. The horror. The absolute horror of a government that does what the law says.

Go home. Apply. Wait your turn. Welcome to America — we have rules here again.