The Trump administration on Tuesday halted immigrant visa applications for 19 countries, citing concerns over national security and public safety, according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) memo.
The pause applies to people who were already subject to partial restrictions implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump in June and includes both green card and citizenship applicants.
The countries facing immigration bans are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Heightened controls have also been imposed on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The memo outlining the new policy mentions the shooting of two U.S. National Guard members in Washington, D.C., last week, in which an Afghan man was arrested as a suspect. Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed in the attack and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically wounded.
“Effective immediately, I am issuing new policy guidance that authorizes USCIS officers to consider country-specific factors as significant negative factors when reviewing immigration requests. American lives come first,” USCIS director Joseph Edlow wrote in the memo.
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The president has been particularly outspoken in recent days about the presence of Somali immigrants in the U.S., specifically Minnesota, saying they were “garbage” and that “we don’t want them in our country, ” near the end of a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
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“They contribute nothing … Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks,” he continued.
Last week, shortly after announcing the death of Beckstrom, the president blamed the millions of migrants residing in the U.S. for “eroding” the living standards of Americans.
The post, shared alongside a Thanksgiving message, threatened a new wave of severe consequences for people his administration deems illegal, including to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.”
The president also vowed to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility” and “deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization,” before claiming, without evidence, that “hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota.”
Roughly 80,000 Somali nationals were living in Minnesota in 2023, according to Minnesota Compass, out of a state population of nearly 6 million.
Trump’s remarks about Somalis in Minnesota come after several instances of fraud were uncovered in state programs, including by Somali residents. Community leaders have called out Trump’s attack on the entire Somali population as discriminatory, arguing that the whole population should not be punished for the alleged criminal activity of some residents.
Khalid Omar, an organizer with the interfaith group ISAIAH, said to the Guardian: “Collective punishment is wrong and racist, and using the actions of a few people to attack an entire community is un-American.”
“If anyone, regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity, committed fraud, they should be held accountable under the law as individuals,” he continued.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has enforced anti-immigration policies nationwide and faced legal backlash for targeting Democratic-run cities with large immigrant populations, including Chicago and Los Angeles. Protests in both cities broke out after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the National Guard were deployed to round up people his administration claims are dangerous foreign criminals.
On Wednesday morning, the Department of Homeland Security announced ICE operations in New Orleans, La., and Minneapolis would be stepped up.
As of Nov. 16, there were 65,135 people in ICE detention, 73.6 per cent of whom have no criminal record, according to Trac Immigration.
According to the Pew Research Centre, as of June 2025, 51.9 million immigrants lived in the U.S., making up 15.4 per cent of the nation’s population.
— With files from Reuters
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