From One Country to Nineteen
That initial pause has now been massively expanded. According to officials, the Trump administration has frozen immigration applications from a total of 19 countries, citing “national security and public safety concerns”.
In addition to Afghanistan, applications from citizens of the following countries are now on hold:
- Burma (Myanmar)
- Chad
- Republic of the Congo
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Haiti
- Iran
- Libya
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Yemen
- Burundi
- Cuba
- Laos
- Sierra Leone
- Togo
- Turkmenistan
- Venezuela
The freeze applies primarily to asylum and immigration benefit applications being processed by USCIS, and is framed as a response to what the administration calls “high-risk origin countries”.
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