USCIS froze asylum applications and immigration benefits for 19 travel-ban countries, ordered green-card review

On December 2, 2025, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192 placing an indefinite hold on all pending affirmative asylum applications—regardless of nationality—and freezing adjudication of all immigration benefits (green cards, work permits, naturalization) filed by nationals of the 19 countries subject to the June 2025 travel ban. Edlow simultaneously announced a "comprehensive review" of every green card already issued to individuals from those countries and an indefinite halt to all immigration processing for Afghan nationals. The memo cited Executive Order 14161 and the November 26 shooting of two National Guard members near the White House as its stated justification, declaring the freeze would remain in place until lifted by a future USCIS directive.

The December 2 memo is the originating administrative act behind the policy that a federal court later declared unlawful. On June 5, 2026, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the District of Rhode Island vacated these policies in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, finding that USCIS lacked statutory authority and had used "pretextual" national-security concerns to "mask anti-immigrant sentiments." That ruling is recorded separately (issue #193); the administration's subsequent defiance of the court order is recorded as issue #347. This entry documents the originating December 2 freeze on its own date.

Updates

2026-07-06 — Ohio court found freeze reflects racial preference for white migrants [5, 6, 7, 8]

U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio granted a preliminary injunction in Doe v. Edlow, barring USCIS and DHS from applying Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192, Policy Memorandum PM-602-0194 (a January 1, 2026 memo that expanded the hold to additional countries under Presidential Proclamation 10998), and Policy Alert PA-2025-26 to the 25 individually named plaintiffs in the case, who hold citizenship in Burma, Canada, Iran, Nigeria, Syria, Tanzania, and Venezuela and had pending applications for green cards, work authorization, and other immigration benefits. Marbley found that the challenged policies treated the plaintiffs' nationality as "a significant and negative factor" in adjudication and, citing President Trump's and Vice President Vance's public statements — including Trump's remarks about "shithole countries" and Haitian immigrants "poisoning the blood" of the country, and Vance's admission that he told fabricated stories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio — wrote that the administration's "general hostility to immigration contrasts with an apparent interest in and preference for the migration of white people." The opinion followed and cited Judge McConnell's Dorcas ruling, and separately noted that one plaintiff, a Zimbabwe-born Canadian citizen, was being held under the freeze despite Canada not being named in any Trump immigration proclamation, calling it "unclear why she is being subjected to challenged policies at all."