US lawmakers demand reversal of USCIS pause on immigration cases

WASHINGTON: More than 100 Democratic lawmakers have urged the Trump administration to immediately lift an indefinite pause on immigration and citizenship applications affecting nationals from 19 countries named in President Donald Trump’s travel ban, warning that the move is inflicting widespread harm on legally vetted immigrants and their families. 

In a December 18 letter addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow, the lawmakers said USCIS’s December 2 announcement had resulted in green card applications, naturalization interviews and even oath ceremonies being “paused or cancelled, solely based on the applicants’ national origin”.

“Despite the Trump Administration’s claims of going after the ‘worst of the worst,’ it is attacking the very people who have followed every process and undergone extensive and repeated vetting to secure legal status,” the members wrote. “This sweeping action is unjustified, discriminatory, and inconsistent with our nation’s founding principles. We demand that you lift this pause immediately,” they said. The letter, led by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement, and Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, details accounts from across the country of applicants being told their cases had been halted, apparently for no reason other than their country of origin.  Lawmakers said the pause is particularly devastating for individuals who had already cleared every legal hurdle to citizenship. In some cases, people who had passed their citizenship exams were “pulled out of line by USCIS officers moments before their oath ceremonies,” the letter said. (IANS)

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