US TO Pause Migration From ‘Third-World Countries’

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to escalate his crackdown on immigration – pledging to “permanently pause migration” to the US from all “third world countries” as he hit out against his country’s “refugee burden”.

Trump’s social media post came after he announced that a US National Guard member had died after a shooting in Washington DC – for which an Afghan national has been blamed.

He did not give further details or name which countries might be affected. Such a plan could face legal challenges and has already prompted pushback from UN agencies.

The president’s announcements after Wednesday’s fatal attack represent a further toughening of his stance towards migrants during his second presidency.

Among other moves, Trump has sought to enact mass deportations of migrants who entered the US illegally, to drastically cut the annual number of refugee admissions, and to end automatic citizenship rights that currently apply to nearly anyone born on US territory.

In the wake of Wednesday’s shooting, Trump promised to remove from the US any foreigner “from any country who does not belong here”. The same day, the US suspended processing all immigration requests from Afghans, saying the decision was made pending a review of “security and vetting protocols”.

Then on Thursday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it would re-examine green cards issued to individuals who had migrated to the US from 19 countries. The agency did not explicitly mention Wednesday’s attack.

When asked by the BBC which countries were on the list, the USCIS pointed to a June proclamation by the White House that included Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia and Venezuela. There were no further details about what the re-examination would look like.