The occasion should have been marked by the joy of reaching the destination of US citizenship following the long odyssey of immigration.
Instead, the ceremony at Boston’s Faneuil Hall – renowned as a “cradle of liberty” for its role as a protest hub in the run-up to the American revolution – felt like a nightmarish end of the road for some aspirant new Americans who had turned up full of hope.
Before proceedings at this month’s event got under way, staff from the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) asked arrivals expecting to swear the oath of allegiance that would finally confirm them as citizens to state their country of origin.
Those from nations included on a travel ban list announced by Donald Trump last summer were then excluded from taking part, despite having completed the years-long vetting process.
Among the disappointed was a Haitian nursing assistant in her 50s who had lived in the US for nearly 25 years – denied what immigration specialists say is her legal right by a sudden policy change introduced by the Trump administration on “security” grounds.
The woman declined an interview request. But Gail Breslow, executive director of Boston-based Project Citizenship – which had helped guide her citizenship application – said she was left devastated and distraught.
“Our client hadn’t received USCIS’s written notification on time and turned up expecting to become a citizen,” Breslow said. “She told us she was not alone in this and the same thing happened to others.
“The image of officers going down a line and asking people where they were born, and based on the answer that they gave, pulling them out of line and sending them home is gut-wrenching.
“We had another client there the same day from Honduras who was allowed to take part and sent us pictures of his naturalization. People are holding little flags and it’s a image of pride and joy as people are surrounded by family members – the contrast between that and people being plucked out of line based on what country they’re from is the most un-American image I can conjure.”
The scene has been replicated in venues elsewhere in response to a USCIS memorandum sent out on 5 December instructing that immigration proceedings be paused for the nationals of 19 countries on Trump’s ban list.
The memo followed the shooting on 26 November of two national guard troops in Washington DC, allegedly by an Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who had been granted asylum earlier this year by the Trump administration.
“In light of identified concerns and the threat to the American people, USCIS has determined that a comprehensive re-review, potential interview, and re-interview of all aliens from high-risk countries of concern who entered the United States on or after January 20, 2021 is necessary,” read the memo, which cites the shooting of the national guards as a justification for the review.
The memo prompted a flood of emails to applicants awaiting naturalization informing them that the ceremonies had been canceled.
“This is to advise you that, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have had to cancel the previously scheduled Oath Ceremony on Wednesday, December 03,2025 at 12:30PM for the above applicant,” one typical email seen by the Guardian read. “We regret any inconvenience this may cause.”
Advocacy groups report oath ceremonies being called off in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Houston, St Louis, Omaha and elsewhere.
“We have seen these cases now in over 16 cities, affecting nationalities that include Iranians, Haitian, Sudanese, Yemen, Venezuelan, Afghan, Sierra Leonean, Guinean, Libyan, just to name quickly some of the countries [proscribed],” said Greg Chen, senior director for government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Prohibitions also apply to green-card applicants and those applying for naturalization but who have not yet reached the stage of taking the oath of allegiance.
“We’re talking about [the cancellation of] three types of things – green-card interviews, naturalization interviews and then … an oath ceremony where it’s kind of finalized,” said Chen.
Most of those affected refuse to speak to the media, fearing that publicity could make them targets for reprisals or raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents enforcing Trump’s immigration agenda, which has been marked by mass deportations of undocumented people.
However, a Libyan doctor – emailing the Guardian anonymously at the request of his lawyer – said his green-card application had been halted despite having worked in the US for 10 years after entering on an O-1/EB-1 (extraordinary ability) visa.
“I never imagined that in the United States I would be targeted because of my nationality and religious background, particularly by the authorities,” wrote the doctor, whose medical work is focused on developing AI diagnostic and treatment tools for lung cancer.
“I invested years of relentless effort in this journey … I pursued the American dream in good faith, believing in this country as a land of opportunity.
“Now, as I reach the final stages of my permanent residency process, an expensive and lengthy process, my future appears jeopardized solely because of my country of origin. I can’t describe to you the uncertainty, fear, disappointment and confusion I feel right now.”
Such feelings are commonplace among groups suddenly fearing their path to citizenship is shutting.
“We’ve had clients in tears asking us, what did they do wrong,” said Breslow of Project Citizenship, which has seen 21 clients receive oath ceremony cancellations and more than 200 being paused at an earlier stage. “What did they do to deserve this? People are very distraught.”
Emotions are running particularly high among Afghans, nearly 200,000 of whom arrived in the US under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome program that followed the 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many now feel singled out and betrayed after the national guard shootings, according to advocates.
“We feel guilt and shame that that guy was part of our community,” said Fatima Saidi, director of We Are All America, a refugee and immigrants group. “But he was also a part of American militarism. He joined the US army when he was 15 and was trained.”
In fact, Lakanwal was part of an Afghan unit that operated under CIA direction.
“We also feel guilty for other communities because policies that are targeting Afghans are also affecting them,” she added. “But the other thing is just hopelessness and disappointment, especially among the Afghans who came here as allies. Most of them feel they have done so much for America, the veterans and the state department.”
Nicole Melaku, executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans, said the collective demonizing of legal residents and citizenship applicants had ominous portents.
“The strategy of the administration began with an assault on undocumented immigrants, and now he [Trump] is going after those with legal status and trying to move them into his deportation pipeline through administrative processes,” she said.
“Everything here feels like part of a larger, ominous agenda to have exclusion, going back to times where we had the Chinese Exclusion Act or other operations in the 1940s like sending people back to Mexico.”
Her warning was given added weight by guidance issued last week to USCIS field offices that signalled a forthcoming assault on the citizenship of Americans already naturalized.
The new guidance instructed offices to “supply Office of Immigration Litigation with 100-200 denaturalization cases per month” during the 2026 fiscal year, the New York Times reported, targets that would amount to a massive escalation of denaturalization cases. By comparison, only 120 were filed from 2017 to 2025.
Federal law mandates that citizenship can only be withdrawn if holders committed fraud while applying. But a justice department memo sent to its civil division last June ordered denaturalization cases to be prioritized and appeared to lay down broader parameters.
“It says they’re going to prioritize denaturalization cases against people who furthered criminal gangs, people who committed felonies that were not disclosed, and people who engaged in fraud against private individuals,” an immigration policy expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. “Those categories don’t require criminal convictions.
“Only certain cases can be denaturalized under the law, although this administration is trying to stretch the parameters of what that means.
“People who have had their naturalization interviews and ceremonies canceled … and then also stripping citizenship from already naturalized Americans – they’re like two halves of the same coin to make more of our community members subject to detention and deportation.”
