The Trump administration is enacting major, discriminatory and open-ended changes to the immigration system. On November 27, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a memo announcing a new guidance allowing for negative, country-specific factors to be considered when vetting individuals from the 19 countries targeted in the June travel ban (PP 10949). A few days later, on December 2, USCIS published another memo announcing an indefinite pause on all immigration applications filed by individuals from the travel ban countries. These policy changes are clearly and blatantly based in discrimination on the basis of national origin, and must be halted.  The impact of these harmful, bias-driven policies is already being deeply felt by members of the targeted communities, including Iranians. Application of these new policies will lead to many already-vetted visa holders, along with green card holders, being arbitrarily denied benefits and potentially even arrested and deported by ICE.  Reports have revealed that naturalization interviews and citizenship ceremonies have been abruptly canceled over the last week. Some reports indicated that officers directly asked individuals attending a naturalization ceremony at Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA what country they were from, “and if they said a certain country, they were told to

برای خواندن این مطلب به فارسی اینجا را کلیک کنید The Trump administration has announced major steps against nationals from Iran and 18 other countries as well as a total pause on the processing of all asylum claims in the wake of the tragic shooting of two members of the U.S. National Guard in Washington, DC last week. These actions are clearly driven by bias against individuals based on their national origin and disconnected from any concrete security needs. As a result, we expect that they will be challenged in the courts. However, they are already beginning to impact Iranian nationals and others. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal immigration agency, has published a memo outlining these actions. They include: The administration has paused all immigration applications, including green card and U.S. citizenship applications, filed by individuals from 19 countries subject to the travel ban. According to the USCIS memo, the administration has enacted an indefinite “hold on pending benefit requests” from nationals of countries subject to the travel ban announced in June 2025 (Presidential Proclamation 10949), “pending a comprehensive review, regardless of entry date.” Initial complaints from community members indicate that various appointments, including for citizenship interviews,