US Citizenship and Immigration Services has halted all asylum decisions, the agency’s director, Joseph Edlow, said on Friday (November 28).
“USCIS has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible,” Edlow said on X.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also wrote that a pause has been placed on visas for individuals on Afghan passports.
US President Donald Trump took to social media late on Thursday to escalate his rhetoric on immigration. Since taking office this year, he has stepped up arrests of immigrants, including some in the US legally, and cracked down on unlawful border crossings while stripping legal status from hundreds of thousands of people.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States,” Trump said in his social media posts, referring to his predecessor in the White House.
Trump did not say which countries he considers “Third World,” nor what he meant by a permanent pause. It echoed the sweeping “Muslim ban” Trump tried to enact in his first term before it was diluted by successful legal challenges.
On Friday, Trump posted again on social media to say he was rescinding any document that Biden signed using an autopen, a tool that US presidents, including Trump, have used for decades, often to answer mail or sign checks, or sometimes to meet authorization deadlines while traveling outside the capital.
After taking office in 2021, Biden reversed many of the restrictive immigration policies of Trump’s first term, saying they blocked people in need of humanitarian protection and were discriminatory.
Asked about Trump’s comment on “Third World” countries, the US Department of Homeland Security referred Reuters to 19 countries listed in a June travel ban.
On Thursday, Homeland Security officials said Trump had ordered a widespread review of asylum cases approved under the Biden administration and permanent-residency green cards issued to citizens of the 19 countries, which include Afghanistan.
Jorge Loweree, the managing director of programs and strategy at the American Immigration Council, said the president does not have authority through executive action to make permanent changes to the immigration system, which is codified by Congress. He warned of chaos and disarray in the US immigration system even if Trump is ultimately blocked by federal courts.
About the Author
