US Halts All Asylum Claim Decisions

The Trump administration has halted all asylum decisions following the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington DC, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director has said.

Joseph Edlow said the pause would be in place “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible”.

It came hours after US President Donald Trump pledged to “permanently pause migration” from all “third world countries”.

The flurry of immigration decisions come in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting, which left one soldier dead and another in a critical condition, and which officials have accused an Afghan national for perpetrating.

While the first of these specifically targeted Afghans seeking to enter the US, other decisions have been far more wide-reaching.

The USCIS – a branch of the Department of Homeland Security – has been told not to approve, deny or close asylum applications it receives for all nationalities, according CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

Its officers can continue to work on asylum applications and review cases up to the point of making a decision, CBS reported. But few details are known about Friday’s directive.

Trump did not name which countries might be affected by his migration pause, which could face legal challenges and has already prompted pushback from UN agencies.

The US president’s recent announcements represent a further toughening of his stance towards migrants during his second presidency.

Trump has also sought to enact mass deportations of illegal migrants, cut the annual number of refugee admissions, and to end automatic citizenship rights currently applicable to many born on US territory.