Citing concerns over national security and public safety the Trump administration on Tuesday announced it suspended all immigration applications, including green card and U.S. citizenship processes, filed by immigrants from 19 non-European nations.
The halt imposes more limitations on immigration, a core component of U.S. President Donald Trump’s electoral program for individuals from 19 nations that were already subject to a partial travel ban in June.
The attack on members of the U.S. National Guards in Washington last week, in which an Afghan man has been detained as a suspect, is mentioned in the formal memo describing the new approach.
The incident claimed the life of one National Guard member and seriously injured another.
In recent days, Trump has also increased his vitriol against Somalis, referring to them as “garbage” and declaring that “we don’t want them in our country.”
Since returning to office in January, Trump has aggressively prioritized immigration enforcement, dispatching federal officers to major U.S. cities and turning away asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
His administration has repeatedly highlighted the deportation push but until now it has focused less emphasis on efforts to reform legal immigration.
Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are among the nations targeted in Wednesday’s memorandum. These nations experienced the harshest immigration restrictions in June including a complete suspension of entries with a few exceptions.
Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela are among the other 19 nations that were partially restricted in June.
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.”