The US government halted all applications for green cards, citizenship and asylum from 19 mostly African and Middle Eastern countries on December 2. This move came a week after President Donald Trump announced he would “permanently pause migration” from all “third-world countries” after two national guard members in Washington were shot by an Afghan national.
A cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 presidential election campaign was his promise to deport record numbers of migrants. And in September, his administration claimed to be on track to deport nearly 600,000 people by the end of Trump’s first year in office. But these latest announcements are a sharp escalation.
