Washington: The Trump administration has paused with immediate effect Green Card, US citizenship, and other immigration applications from 19 “countries of concern”, PTI reported.
The directive came amid an intensified crackdown on immigration in the wake of a shooting of National Guard soldiers by an Afghan national last month.
A policy memorandum on Tuesday directed the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to “place on hold”, effective immediately, all asylum applications, regardless of the immigrant's country of nationality, pending a comprehensive review.
The directive also places on hold all applications for Green Cards, US citizenship requests, and other immigration applications for immigrants from the 19 countries on whom the Trump administration had placed a travel ban and are considered "countries of concern” by the White House.
These countries are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Burundi, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Yemen.
The applications will be on hold “pending a comprehensive review, regardless of entry date”, the directive said.
These are the same countries that were subject to a travel ban announced by US President Donald Trump in a proclamation issued in June this year.
The proclamation ‘Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats' restricted and limited the entry of nationals of these countries into the US and applied to both immigrants and non-immigrants.
The new guidance came in the wake of the tragic shooting of US Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and US Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal.