Washington: United States President Donald Trump announced drastic measures against immigration in late November. All asylum procedures were suspended indefinitely "until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible," Joseph Edlow, director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), posted on X. Further restrictions have since been imposed on nationals from 19 countries, including entry bans and the suspension of all immigration applications and naturalizations.
According to Deutsche Welle, the background to these new policies is an attack on two National Guard soldiers in Washington on November 26, where one victim later died. The suspected attacker, a 29-year-old Afghan, was arrested and charged with murder. Despite President Trump's criticism of immigration under Joe Biden, a US government file revealed that the alleged gunman was granted asylum this year under Trump's administration, as reported by Reuters.
The immigration ban applies to citizens of 19 countries across Asia, Latin America, and Africa. These include Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Laos, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of Congo, and Burundi. These countries had already faced entry bans in June 2025, and the restrictions have now been tightened. US authorities claim these countries do not provide reliable information for security checks and fail to cooperate in repatriating individuals required to leave the US.
The new restrictions have severe consequences for the affected individuals, halting all green card applications, naturalizations, and asylum procedures. Even those with ongoing applications face uncertainty, and green card holders might lose their status after new security checks. Additionally, the validity period of work permits for refugees and other migrants has been reduced from five years to 18 months. This freeze not only affects war refugees and persecuted individuals but also hampers family reunifications and impacts sectors reliant on foreign workers, particularly in health, science, and technology.
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers and human rights organizations, have condemned the measures. Tanya Greene, US program director at Human Rights Watch, stated that "Nothing meaningfully links the 19 countries except the administration's opportunistic stigmatization and exclusion of people based on where they were born." Greene argues that the policy is about scapegoating entire nationalities rather than ensuring safety, labeling it as discriminatory.