The Standing Record

A daily, non-partisan record of US democratic norms — and the events that erode them.

USCIS indefinitely halted all Afghan immigration requests—asylum, green cards, SIVs—hours after D.C. shooting

On November 26, 2025, USCIS announced it was immediately and indefinitely pausing processing of all immigration requests from Afghan nationals, covering asylum seekers, green-card applicants, work-permit renewals, family petitions, and Special Immigrant Visa applicants, many of whom aided U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan. The agency imposed the halt by announcement with no rulemaking, no end date, and no individualized review, citing security-vetting concerns in the hours following an alleged shooting by an Afghan national near the White House.

Part of: Trump Administration Asylum and Immigration Benefit Restrictions

Jurisdiction
federal
Location
Nationwide

Abuses documented

Actors

Hours after a shooting near the White House in which an Afghan national was alleged to be the attacker, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on November 26, 2025 that it was immediately and indefinitely pausing processing of all immigration requests from Afghan nationals. The halt covered every category of benefit: asylum applications, green-card petitions, work-permit renewals, family petitions, adjustment-of-status filings, and Special Immigrant Visa applications—including those from Afghans who had aided U.S. military and diplomatic operations during the war and whose SIV eligibility is mandated by Congress. The agency imposed the suspension by announcement with no rulemaking, no end date, and no individualized review of any applicant's circumstances.

The action is the first and Afghan-specific element of a post-shooting crackdown that expanded over the following week: a broader nationwide asylum-decisions halt on November 28 (issue #497) and the December 2 USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192 broadening the freeze to 19 countries (issue #495). This entry records the originating act—the November 26 Afghan-only suspension—as a discrete event on its own date, distinct from those subsequent actions.

Why we recorded this

The Immigration and Nationality Act bars the executive branch from discriminating in immigration benefits on the basis of nationality without individualized adjudication; a blanket agency-wide halt on all Afghan requests—imposed by a social-media post with no rulemaking, no individualized review, and no statutory authority—violates that requirement and strips statutory protections from wartime allies who hold congressionally mandated Special Immigrant Visa eligibility. We record this November 26 agency announcement as a distinct act because it was the first Afghan-specific immigration suspension following the National Guard shooting, preceding and legally separate from the broader December 2 USCIS policy memorandum (PM-602-0192). Collective punishment of an entire nationality for an act attributed to one individual is the core mechanism of discriminatory policy that the archive tracks.

Sources

  1. Trump administration pauses all immigration applications from Afghans after National Guard shooting in D.C. — CBS News primary accessed June 18, 2026
  2. USCIS pauses processing of immigration requests from Afghans — Immigration Policy Tracking Project secondary accessed June 18, 2026
  3. Trump Administration Pauses Immigration From Afghanistan After D.C. Shooting — The New York Times secondary accessed June 18, 2026

See also