Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Trump administration on December 2 said it paused all immigration applications, including green card and U.S. citizenship processing, filed by immigrants from 19 non-European countries, citing concerns over national security and public safety.
The pause applies to people from 19 countries that were already subjected to a partial travel ban in June, placing further restrictions on immigration – a core feature of U.S. President Donald Trump’s political platform.
The official memorandum outlining the new policy cites the attack on the U.S. National Guard members in Washington last week in which an Afghan man has been arrested as a suspect. One member of the National Guard was killed and another was critically wounded in the shooting.
The flurry of promised restrictions since the attack on National Guard members suggests an increased focus on legal immigration framed around protecting national security and casting blame on former President Joe Biden for his policies.
The list of countries targeted in the latest memorandum includes Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, which were subjected to the most severe immigration restrictions in June, including a full suspension on entries with a few exceptions. Others on the list of 19 countries, which were subjected to partial restrictions in June, are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The new policy places a hold on pending applications and mandates that all immigrants from the list of countries “undergo a thorough re-review process, including a potential interview and, if necessary, a re-interview, to fully assess all national security and public safety threats.”
Immigration lawyers say that some clients have had citizenship hearings cancelled this week, including for migrants coming from Venezuela, Iran, and Afghanistan, according to ABC News. The pause on immigration applications will put further strain on a system that has already been struggling with backlogs.
