Nigeria exempted as US plans review of green cards issued to migrants from 19 countries

The United States has announced plans to re-examine allgreen cards issued to nationals of 19 countries as part of a broad review ofimmigration records. The move is part of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown onimmigrants following the shooting of two national guard members by a suspectnamed Rahmanullah Lakanwal from Afghanistan. “At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale,rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every countryof concern,” Joe Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services(USCIS), wrote in an X post on Thursday. “The protection of this country and of the American peopleremains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prioradministration’s reckless resettlement policies. American safety is nonnegotiable.” The 19 countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republicof the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan,Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. The USCIS said when vetting immigrants from those 19countries, the agency will now take into consideration “negative, countryspecific factors”, which includes whether the country is able “to issue secureidentity documents”. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it would stopprocessing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals pendingfurther review of security and vetting protocols. The decision is effectiveimmediately. The DHS also said the administration is reviewing all asylumcases that were approved under former President Joe Biden. Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 under a programme thatoffered special immigration protections to Afghans in the wake of thewithdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Authorities have confirmed that he once worked alongside theCIA in Afghanistan.

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