An sudden notification arrived from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “We hereby inform you that, as a consequence of unexpected circumstances, now we have needed to cancel the interview scheduled for Wednesday, December 3, 2025, at 9:50 a.m.” Zoe, a Cuban lady who has been a everlasting resident in New York for 5 years, was finalizing the main points of the interview, reviewing the names of U.S. congressmembers and historic leaders, and re-reading the duties and rights that anybody aspiring to turn into a U.S. citizen ought to know. “I used to be joyful as a result of every part was going easily, I used to be learning Lincoln, Washington and each member of Congress,” she says. Then, by means of an e mail, she was knowledgeable that the trail to her naturalization has been indefinitely postponed. That standing is sort of the one assure — for the second — in a rustic decided to expel its immigrants.
The temporary notification she obtained on December 1 said that she would be told of “any additional motion taken on this case, together with info relating to the rescheduling of the interview.” USCIS additionally added that they regretted “any inconvenience this will trigger.”
At first Zoe thought it is perhaps a mistake, or an unexpected occasion. “Just likelihood, the snowfall, or workers shortages as a result of authorities shutdown,” she informed herself. But when she awoke the following morning, the information was a actuality in each media outlet within the nation: the Trump administration had paused immigration purposes from nationals of 19 international locations thought-about high-risk, together with Cuba and Venezuela, a measure taken as an growth of the journey ban introduced in June. Applications for everlasting residency or citizenship have been suspended, and candidates could be topic to extra thorough vetting.
USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow stated in a press release that they have been implementing “extra safeguards to make sure that fraud, deception, and threats don’t compromise the integrity of our immigration system.” Immediately, migrants throughout the nation started reporting receiving not solely the identical e mail, but additionally the cancellation of their citizenship oaths.
The newest measure taken by the White House targets those that thought they have been just a little safer: everlasting residents, only one step away from changing into residents. But at a time when there have even been threats to get rid of birthright citizenship, and when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained naturalized residents, the one certainty is that no immigrant is secure.
“I’d been speaking to my husband for months, ever since increasingly more movies of arbitrary ICE arrests began popping out,” Zoe says. “He informed me that none of this may have an effect on me, that I’m a authorized resident, married to an American citizen, with an American baby. But I felt that it might, that it might occur to me too, as a result of in the long run they go in any case immigrants, searching for new and sinister methods to intimidate us. Being a authorized resident within the United States proper now means being a second-class citizen. I’m afraid to journey after which not be allowed again in, afraid that they’ll revoke my inexperienced card, that they’ll separate me from my child.”
The first precedence, based on the Trump administration, was to cease unlawful immigration and expel “the worst of the worst” from the nation. Suspensions of Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole adopted. Then they prolonged their energy to immigration courts, and ICE turned part of each day life within the nation’s main cities. But that’s not sufficient; they’re going a lot additional. The idea of “prison” has expanded, and the message is evident: no foreigner is welcome.
Aboard Air Force One, the place Trump just lately defined his concept of so-called reverse immigration — which includes “eradicating the people who find themselves in our nation” and who entered due to the Joe Biden administration — the president was requested if he deliberate to denaturalize migrants. “If I’ve the ability to do it — I’m undecided that I do, but when I do — I’d denaturalize, completely,” he replied.
Processes on maintain
The taking pictures of two National Guard troops by 29-year-old Afghan nationwide Rahmanullah Lakanwal was the ultimate straw that led Trump to greenlight the intensification of his anti-immigrant insurance policies. It wasn’t lengthy after the incident that shook Washington, D.C., that the president threatened to droop immigration from “all Third World international locations.” By the tip of November, the brand new measures that now have all migrants on edge have been already being applied.
According to immigration legal professional Liudmila Marcelo, these insurance policies primarily have an effect on these with out prison data, “as a result of these are the individuals who report back to ICE, adjust to their court docket dates, and need to observe the right and mandatory steps to acquire authorized standing.” “It has by no means been about immigrants with prison data, as a result of these immigrants should not straightforward to seek out and prosecute; these immigrants don’t go to court docket, they don’t report back to ICE,” she maintains.
Ángela Linares — a Cuban lady who requested utilizing an assumed title — has been repeatedly affected by the president’s immigration insurance policies. Over a yr in the past, she thought she was lucky when a authorized path to the United States opened up for her after she obtained humanitarian parole. The day the White House ended this system, Linares started residing on the margins of society in Florida.
“I used to be left in an unlawful scenario. I needed to put every part on maintain as a result of since they restricted all of the processes, I haven’t obtained my work allow or my residency. Life is on maintain,” she says. Now she works “below the desk,” and he or she doesn’t even dare drive from her house in West Palm Beach to her dad and mom’ home in Cape Coral, for concern of being stopped by the police. “My father doesn’t need me to go to him. He is aware of that any journey is dangerous. They cease you they usually don’t care about something. They’re violating every part; there’s no safety.”
The household lives in concern that, after practically a decade of ready, Linares, 49, should go away all by herself as soon as once more. In 2016, her dad and mom, each U.S. residents, started the method of petitioning for her. In 2024, her luck modified, and he or she joined them as a beneficiary of parole. The notification to seem on the embassy in Havana to acquire her household reunification visa arrived when she was already within the United States. At one other time, she might need thought-about returning to the island and showing earlier than the consular authorities, however the journey ban considers her “non-priority” as a result of she is an grownup daughter. She additionally misplaced the potential for pursuing her petition.
With the newest measures, she confronted one other setback. Because of her Cuban nationality, she was eligible to use for the Cuban Adjustment Act, however now her residency course of is being affected. In a message posted on X in late November, USCIS director Edlow stated that at Trump’s request he had ordered “a rigorous, large-scale evaluate of each inexperienced card of each alien from each nation of concern.”
According to the legal professional Marcelo, pausing these processes “implies that the quantity of stalled circumstances will improve,” although appreciable delays have been already being skilled in processing Cuban Adjustment residency purposes. “This will convey an excellent higher interval of uncertainty for many who don’t really feel safe till they obtain their everlasting residency, as a result of although they meet the necessities, till that residency is granted, they’re vulnerable to being detained.”
In addition to everlasting residency and citizenship purposes, asylum purposes have additionally been paused. According to Edlow, the suspension will stay in place “till we will assure that every one foreigners are investigated and examined with the utmost rigor.” The measure impacts greater than 1.5 million folks with pending asylum purposes.
Even so, legal professional Aaron Ortiz-Santos insists that his agency is advising purchasers to not abandon their circumstances. “We inform folks to maintain going in order that if a lawsuit is filed and these guidelines are suspended, the proceedings can proceed.” For now, nevertheless, there isn’t a official date for when they may resume.
“They are taking away the necessities so that individuals will go away”
The U.S. authorities — which is aware of that “the most important deportation in historical past” includes excessive expense and that it is usually not straightforward to find the tens of millions of undocumented immigrants it intends to expel — has been utilizing different varieties of methods to nook them or make them go for self-deportation.
The Republican administration started the final month of the yr with restrictions on work permits, limiting to 18 months people who beforehand lasted as much as 5 years. According to the director of USCIS, the measure ensures that these “looking for to work within the United States don’t pose a risk to public security or promote ideologies opposite to nationwide values.”
On the opposite hand, a number of migrants have begun reporting notifications from their banks asking them to replace their immigration standing to keep away from account closures or freezes. Those who haven’t utilized for asylum, should not have residency, or lack work permits will discover it unimaginable to justify their standing.
Linares says the most important problem as of late is waking up within the morning “with none safety.” “How are you going to dwell should you don’t have cash? Because should you don’t have a piece allow and you haven’t any option to pay, you possibly can’t have an revenue. What do you do should you don’t have a driver’s license in a rustic the place you must drive? They’re suffocating you, they’re taking away your freedom, you possibly can’t transfer round, and should you don’t have a job you possibly can’t dwell on this nation. That’s why they’re doing it. They’re taking away the necessities so folks will go away.”
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