It would be easy to let a seemingly inane technical immigration policy change get lost in the sea of heart wrenching and searing headlines. In the past days and weeks we have seen the disturbing images of close to 300 Venezuelans removed from the United States to a notorious Salvadoran prison, including asylum seekers removed before their day in court.
We’ve seen the video of plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arresting Turkish graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk in Boston on her way home from breaking her fast. She was disappeared to a detention center in Louisiana, ostensibly for co-authoring an op-ed. We have read about countless individuals, including doctors, farmworker union leaders and activists, a Canadian actress, and so many others arrested and put into ICE detention as detention numbers skyrocket.
We have watched as the Trump administration issues executive orders targeting law firms and immigration lawyers who stand up against these policies and fight for immigrants’ rights. There is quite literally something new every day, deepening the fear and unease with which noncitizens move through their daily lives.
But last week, the Trump administration “paused” processing for green card (permanent resident) applications from asylees and refugees. This administrative move, a quiet “pause” is nefarious, xenophobic and deeply political.
Asylees are individuals who have been granted asylum — protection for individuals who fear persecution or have been persecuted in their countries of origin on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. After one year with asylee status in the U.S., asylees have the right to apply for permanent residence.
Bear in mind that these folks have often been waiting for years to have their claims for protection adjudicated, given a million cases in the backlog before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum office and over 3.5 million cases in the backlog in the immigration courts. This means that individuals granted asylum have already waited for years for the adjudication of their claims for protection.
In order to be granted asylum, they first through extensive background checks and vetting. Indeed, many of the asylees with pending green card applications today will have been vetted and granted asylum during the first Trump administration. To say that the second Trump administration does not trust the first Trump administration’s vetting is ridiculous, and that’s because this is not about national security or any threat to the U.S.
If these individuals posed any threat to the U.S., they would not have been granted asylum. No, this is about lengthening the path to citizenship so that naturalized immigrants cannot vote, presumably, against Trump and his supporters. Four years after receiving permanent residence, asylees and refugees can apply to naturalize and become U.S. citizens.
This is also about the xenophobic sentiments and views held by those high up in the Trump administration, including Stephen Miller, now White House deputy chief of staff, who has been publicly quoted to say he would be “happy if not a single refugee foot touched U.S. soil again.”
All of this is a continuation of what began under Trump’s first administration — a constellation of targeted attacks against our refugee and asylum systems, undermining our domestic and international legal obligations to ensure that those fleeing persecution, torture and harm would never again be turned away from our shores.
Just like asylees, refugees have undergone intense vetting and scrutiny, but for refugees that occurs before they ever arrive in the U.S. If these individuals, seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution, posed any threat, they would not have been issued refugee status. Further, refugees are quite literally required to apply for permanent residence one year after arrival. And now, their cases are on hold, indefinitely.
It is worth noting that even without a “pause,” processing times for asylee and refugee adjustments can be lengthy. Currently, Citizenship and Immigration Services’ own case processing website shares that the average processing time for an asylee adjustment of status is 15-and-a-half months and 14 months for a refugee adjustment. That said, under the first Trump administration, the average case processing time for an asylee adjustment was at one point five years.
An asylee, whose case I recently closed, wrote to me in a thank you card, “Thank you for giving me a sense of permanence/home for the first time. This is not something I will ever forget. I check my green card almost every day because I can’t believe that I have it.”
It wasn’t until this young woman had secured permanent residence that she started to feel safe, like she was “home.”
The message is being sent, loud and clear, from the Trump administration that immigrants are not welcome here. We, the half of the U.S. citizens and voters who did not vote this president into office, must take a stand and speak out, over, and over again. Neither that young woman nor other asylees, refugees and non-citizens are going to feel safe or comfortable speaking out about this change in policy. We must do it.
One of the first actions of the second Trump administration was to indefinitely suspend the U.S. refugee resettlement program. That was quickly challenged and a court enjoined that executive order. I hope to see a similar lawsuit challenging this “pause.”
The Trump administration should resume processing of these applications immediately. When it doesn’t resume processing without a court order, support the lawyers and organizations who bring litigation forcing it to do so. “Pausing” adjudication of adjustment of status is morally wrong, xenophobic and harmful to the refugees and asylees we welcomed into the U.S. in the last decade.
Lindsay Muir Harris is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco School of Law. She is a proud immigrant from the United Kingdom.