The Homeland Security Department has lifted its total ban on reviewing asylum applications, though the pause remains in effect for about 40 countries.
The Trump administration in November paused the processing of some 4 million asylum applications filed to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that oversees the processing of applications for visas, naturalizations and asylum. The pause came as a part of a slew of restrictions on immigration after an Afghan national shot two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 26, 2025. One of the Guard members died the next day from her injuries.
At the time, the Trump administration called the move a national security necessity. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the pause was indefinite while the agency figured out how to work through its backlog of nearly 4 million cases.
The hold on processing will remain for three dozen countries that have been labeled as "high risk" and have travel restrictions to the U.S. The list includes mostly countries in Africa, as well as Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria.
Still in effect are various other pauses on legal migration – including a pause on the issuing of immigrant visas for 75 countries, and a pause on all immigration applications from countries covered by the travel ban.
"USCIS has lifted the adjudicative hold for thoroughly screened asylum seekers from non high-risk countries," a DHS spokesperson wrote in a statement to NPR, adding that maximum screening and vetting will continue. "This move allows resources to focus on continued rigorous national security and public safety vetting for higher-risk cases."
Toward the end of last year, DHS began taking steps to further pause and review these legal avenues of migration. USCIS announced it would re-review the status of everyone who had been admitted into the U.S. as a refugee under the Biden administration, essentially reopening those cases. Some of those cases have been referred to immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.
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