{"id":607538,"date":"2025-12-02T14:18:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T14:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/607538\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T14:18:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T14:18:20","slug":"asylum-seekers-across-us-in-limbo-over-trumps-policy-reversals-devastating-us-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/607538\/","title":{"rendered":"Asylum seekers across US in limbo over Trump\u2019s policy reversals: \u2018devastating\u2019 | US immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

News that the Trump administration<\/a> has paused asylum decisions, halted visas for Afghans who assisted the US war effort and is reevaluating green card applications for people from countries \u201cof concern\u201d has left asylum seekers across the US reeling \u2013 and pushed deeper into limbo.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say that fear travels faster than information. And that\u2019s exactly what has happened,\u201d said Reza Hussaini, a 23-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan<\/a> who came to the US in 2022 and is still awaiting an interview to evaluate his case.<\/p>\n

Immigration lawyers and advocates are still trying to understand exactly how the Trump administration\u2019s flurry of immigration<\/a> policies restricting asylum and legal immigration would be implemented. The far-reaching policy announcements, aimed at dramatically curtailing legal pathways to immigration, came after Donald Trump<\/a> vowed to<\/a> \u201cpermanently pause\u201d migration from \u201cthird world\u201d countries following last week\u2019s shooting<\/a> of two national guard members in DC by a suspect who is an Afghan national.<\/p>\n

The new rules could affect nearly 1.5m pending asylum cases with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).<\/p>\n

Legal experts expect that the broader asylum pause and other policy changes will face challenges in court. Advocates have warned that the administration\u2019s policy announcements targeting refugees, asylum seekers and specifically Afghan nationals following the shooting amounts to collective punishment.<\/p>\n

Hussaini \u2013 like many other Afghans and asylum seekers in the US \u2013 doesn\u2019t know how his immigration case, or those of his friends and community, would be affected. \u201cBut it kind of puts me in a corner \u2026 Even more than fear, it\u2019s uncertainty about what my status could be, what\u2019s going to happen next, what my future is going to look like. What if I get deported back to Afghanistan<\/a> \u2013 back to a government that sees me as the enemy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hussaini says he survived two terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. He began working with non-profit organizations in Afghanistan as a teen, advocating for education, women\u2019s rights, and democracy. He was detained and questioned by the Taliban forces in 2021, he said, and escaped via Pakistan shortly after. If the US expels him now, he fears he\u2019ll have an even bigger target on his back than before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that the intention of these policies is to be demoralizing,\u201d said Faisal Al-Juburi, head of external affairs at the legal aid group Ra\u00edces, which has more than 50 pending asylum cases with USCIS. \u201cAnd it\u2019s leaving people in a limbo, creating a greater sense of unease, of opacity around people\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers and advocates at Ra\u00edces have been working to reassure asylum seekers and other immigrants that not all the proposed policy changes may be legal, he said, and that attorneys across the US will be seeking to understand and clarify the impacts. \u201cWe can\u2019t go by what ifs, because right now, there is no clear picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

What if I get deported back to Afghanistan \u2013 back to a government that sees me as the enemy?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reza Hussaini, asylum seeker from Afghanistan<\/p>\n

What is certain is that asylum seekers are looking at an even longer process than they had been expecting. USCIS director Joseph B. Edlow said that the agency \u201chas halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

That pause will exacerbate an already spiralling backlog of pending asylum cases, said Yliana Johansen-M\u00e9ndez, the chief program officer at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. \u201cFor those people that have been waiting for eight years for their interviews, who thought they were finally going to get some resolution and some protection and some stability, it\u2019s just going to prolong their wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, while the pause announcement has rattled many asylum seekers, the fact that the asylum process already stretches out over a long time has dulled the sting. \u201cThe process is so slow. So what\u2019s some statement that they\u2019re not going to process asylum applications, that there\u2019s going to be another year added to an already years-long process?\u201d said Dave Meyer, a volunteer with the Bloomington Refugee Support Network in Indiana, which helps immigrants adjust to life in the US, and find services and access to medical care.<\/p>\n

Amir, who fled Afghanistan and came to the US via Mexico last year, said he still doesn\u2019t understand what the policy changes mean for him. The Guardian is not using his real name to protect his privacy and safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know exactly what it means, but I know everyone with a pending case is worried,\u201d he said. The USCIS policy change applies to \u201caffirmative\u201d asylum cases \u2013 filed by migrants who are in the US, and are not in deportation proceedings. But Amir has a \u201cdefensive\u201d asylum case \u2013 he is facing removal and will have the chance to make a case for asylum in front of an immigration judge under the Department of Justice next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what will happen. But I think it\u2019s not fair to blame all immigrants for the actions of one person,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I hope that if we haven\u2019t done any crimes, if we haven\u2019t done anything wrong, then this won\u2019t affect us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he and pretty much every other asylum seeker and Afghan immigrant he knows is either confused or afraid, or both, he said. Amir is part of the Hazara Shia minority in Afghanistan, which has faced escalating violence and persecution since 2021. \u2018There is no safe place for us in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hussaini, who has also helped several Afghans who worked with US military with their immigration cases, said he has been fielding frantic messages from many of them in the past few days.<\/p>\n

One man, who worked with the US military for 20 years before being forced to flee Afghanistan, finally obtained asylum after a harrowing, months-long process. He was deflated on the phone, worried that his status could be ripped away. \u201cIt\u2019s that feeling of starting everything from zero again,\u201d Hussaini said.<\/p>\n

He has also been struggling to maintain a sense of steadiness amid the uncertainty, he said. \u201cI used to think coffee tastes nasty. But since what has happened, the only way I can escape is I just run every few hours to the gas station to get some coffee and drink it, just to calm my mind,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard. It\u2019s devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News that the Trump administration has paused asylum decisions, halted visas for Afghans who assisted the US war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-607538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115650409473318646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}