The United States on Friday paused all asylum decisions and stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan as President Trump launched a major review of the country’s immigration system after the shooting of two National Guard members.
Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a statement that his agency had “halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
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The State Department also announced on Friday night that it was halting visas for Afghans, including those who had helped the United States during the war in their country.
The decisions come as Mr. Trump steps up his anti-immigration policies after a gunman, identified by the authorities as an Afghan national, shot two members of the National Guard on Wednesday in Washington, just blocks from the White House.
The suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, entered the United States through a temporary program set up to manage the immigration of Afghan nationals fleeing Taliban rule. {snip}
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The order by Secretary of State Marco Rubio freezes the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans, which had been set up for people who had helped out the U.S. military and government in the war. {snip}
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Afghan refugee applications had been frozen months earlier, in a blanket refugee ban. Mr. Trump then issued a travel ban in June on 19 countries that included Afghanistan, but there has been an exception for applicants for Special Immigrant Visas. With this latest action, the final legal entrance for Afghans outside the United States has been closed.
In recent days, officials also announced that they were reviewing green cards given to people from countries banned from travel to the United States by the administration, pausing all immigration applications from Afghan immigrants and beginning a review of asylum requests granted during the Biden administration.
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The post Trump Pauses All Asylum Applications and Halts Visas for Afghans appeared first on American Renaissance.
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