“At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” Joe Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, wrote in a post on X Thursday.
Asked for additional details, including which countries are considered to be “of concern,” USCIS pointed CNN to 19 countries listed in a June presidential proclamation.
The 19 countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela, according to CNN.
USCIS said in a statement later Thursday that when vetting immigrants from those 19 countries, the agency will now take into consideration “negative, country specific factors,” which includes whether the country is able “to issue secure identity documents.”
Since officials last night identified the suspect of the shooting as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national, the Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to restrict immigration.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, said Thursday the administration is also reviewing all asylum cases that were approved under former President Joe Biden.
More than 190,000 Afghans have resettled in the United States since the US military withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, according to the State Department, the report added.
MA/PR
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