The Trump administration has ordered a halt to processing many immigration benefits — including green cards and naturalization — for people from 19 countries designated as high-risk under its travel restrictions, announcing broader immigration changes after a shooting that wounded and killed National Guard members.
A policy memo posted Tuesday by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) says the pause affects a wide range of immigration decisions for nationals of the 19 countries and that USCIS Director Joseph Edlow will decide when the suspension will be lifted. The agency says it will conduct comprehensive re-reviews, potential interviews and re-interviews of people from those countries who entered the United States on or after Jan. 20, 2021, and will review approved benefit requests for immigrants who arrived during the Biden administration.
The list of countries comes from a travel-restriction package the administration announced in June. That action banned travel for citizens of 12 countries and imposed access restrictions on citizens of seven others. The administration identified the following as banned: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The countries subject to restricted access are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
When the travel limits were originally announced, the administration did not immediately take action against immigrants from those countries who were already in the United States. The new USCIS guidance, however, places nationals of the listed countries under heightened scrutiny and calls for targeted reviews of people who entered on or after Jan. 20, 2021. Within 90 days, USCIS said it will produce a prioritized list of immigrants for review and, if warranted, refer cases to immigration enforcement or other law enforcement agencies.
The memo cites a Thanksgiving-week shooting near the White House, in which an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members — killing one and wounding another — as a factor prompting the pause and expanded review. The agency framed the re-reviews as necessary “in light of identified concerns and the threat to the American people.”
Since the shooting, the administration has announced several measures aimed at tightening scrutiny of immigrants already in the country and people seeking entry. Last week USCIS’s director signaled on social media that green card applications from countries “of concern” would be reexamined; Tuesday’s policy directive sets out the broader scope of who is affected. USCIS has also paused all asylum decisions, the State Department has halted visas for Afghans who assisted U.S. forces, and a separate USCIS memo issued days before the shooting said the agency would review cases of all refugees who arrived during the Biden administration.
Advocates and critics argue the measures amount to collective punishment, saying they unfairly target large groups of immigrants rather than focusing on individuals who pose specific security risks. The administration defends the actions as necessary security steps. USCIS has not given a timeline for lifting the suspension and said decisions about when to resume normal processing will be made by the director.
