The Trump administration hit pause on immigration paperwork for people from 19 nations that got slapped with travel restrictions back in June, and this freeze covers green card requests plus citizenship applications from places like Iran, Sudan, Eritrea, Haiti, and Somalia. Matthew Tragesser from US Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed the move after a shooting incident involving an Afghan asylum recipient spooked officials into tightening things up even more. Immigration attorneys started seeing naturalization ceremonies get scrapped with zero warning, and their clients were showing up to scheduled interviews only to find out everything had been canceled.
The new policy basically throws another wrench into an already backed-up system that was dealing with massive delays. Lawyers reported cases where people who had been waiting months or even years for their appointments suddenly saw everything disappear from the system without any explanation of what would happen next. The administration also started reviewing green cards that were already issued to folks from banned countries and put asylum decisions on ice while they reassess grants from the previous administration.
The new policy basically throws another wrench into an already backed-up system that was dealing with massive delays. Lawyers reported cases where people who had been waiting months or even years for their appointments suddenly saw everything disappear from the system without any explanation of what would happen next. The administration also started reviewing green cards that were already issued to folks from banned countries and put asylum decisions on ice while they reassess grants from the previous administration.
