On Dec. 3, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced in a memo that it would pause all pending applications for green cards, citizenships, or asylum from 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Iran, Haiti, and others.
The announcement of these new restrictions followed the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 26. The suspect arrested is an Afghan national who was granted asylum to the U.S. through Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden administration’s evacuation effort for Afghan refugees fleeing their home country after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Imran Khan came to Albany in 2017 through a Special Immigration Visa after his work for the U.S. Army as an interpreter. He says the suspension of all visa and asylum applications from Afghanistan was unjust treatment of the Afghan community.
“Look, I mean, just one example, if I gave you that probably will be sufficient, like, you know, the Charlie Kirk incident," he said. "A white person, a white American, did that violent action against one person. Okay, so are you going to vet all the white Americans? Are you just pursuing that one person? You know there's, I think, kind of discrimination against all Afghans, and thinking that everybody is violent, thinking putting everybody in one category is unjust, I will say, it's discrimination.”
According to Afghan American Community Center president Yousaf Sherzad, ICE arrested 10 Afghan nationals in the Capital Region this week. Sherzad said the new rules are causing panic and fear among Afghan refugees and asylum applicants who have already been through the complete legal process.
“But now in this situation, the news and Afghan just getting arrested, left and right and being targeted without any criminal act, and where they were following all the rules of the law who may have asylum pending with the immigration attorneys, submitted all the right documents, and still they're getting a part from their families is a very sad and scary situation,” he said.
Along with the increase in ICE arrests and deportations, there is also new concern in New York state about reaching the final stage of the process: the naturalization ceremony, during which new citizens take an oath of allegiance to the United States. Last month, seven counties in New York received notifications from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services that their naturalization ceremonies had been cancelled, due to not meeting statutory requirements to perform the ceremonies.
After widespread condemnation from elected officials and community advocates, the ceremonies were reinstated a week later. But this week, three Hudson Valley counties – Ulster, Dutchess, and Putnam – received another notification that their ceremonies were canceled, allegedly due to there being too few candidates.
State Senator Michelle Hinchey condemned the cancellation during a press conference in Ulster County on Friday, saying that there was no clarity for local governments.
“First of all, what does too few mean? What is that, this new threshold that they seemingly are trying to put in place? But two, is that even realistic? Because we've had lots of folks scheduled for these ceremonies before, but there's no way for local government to even vet that and to check it, because they don't share that information,” she said.
Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck also noted that the county had been informed that there was a backlog of people waiting for naturalization in 2024.
“Because when we have our ceremonies at the courthouse, we max out at about 30 people," he said. "So we started hosting them at larger locations to have more people. The last one we did in September, we did in the auditorium at SUNY Ulster, expecting more people and all of the ones for 2026 we expected upwards of 100 per ceremony.”
Bruck also said that there was little communication from USCIS about the ceremonies, as Ulster County was initially not informed of the cancellations.
“So we kept following up with them to say, is ours canceled? Is ours still on? And we never heard back from them until they did come back and say they are on, and then a week later, they're off for this new reason," he said. But it's hard to get a hold of them. It's hard to get an answer.”
Immigrants who are waiting for their ceremony can go to federal courthouses to get their naturalization certificate, but Bryan MacCormack, co-executive director of the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, said that going to federal buildings could be dangerous for immigrants and their families.
“We have members who are being disappeared at their check ins, at their court hearings," he said. "And so if this is a ceremony that happens in a federal building, and you are from a mixed status family, that means your family is not safe going to that building, which means you are taking that alone or risking detention and deportation for those family members.”
Victor Cueva, executive director of the Ulster County Immigrant Defense Network, told WAMC News he was concerned about the precedent that these decisions by the Trump administration set.
“You can't just pause adjudications," he said. "You can't just pause asylum. There's been with this administration, the first time around, lawsuits about this. And I would expect there to be one again, because this is what we keep doing. They will do something through executive order or a change in policy. There's a lawsuit. It gets reinstated, and people's lives are in limbo during this time.”
As Khan said, amidst the confusion regarding the suspension of visa and asylum applications, the lives of the people hoping for a more permanent home in the U.S. are on hold.
“People have plans, you know," he said. "I know people that work with me, where I work, so they were planning to restart, they were hoping to get their green cards through some kind of documentations so they could sponsor their spouses, they could sponsor their children, things like that. All of them being suspended, they have no hope right now. There is so much stress and fear in the community. When you go there, you feel like everybody is just going to start crying.”
