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US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow said President Donald Trump has “directed a full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern”.
“The security of this country and the American people is paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the former administration’s reckless resettlement policies,” Edlow said in a post on Twitter.
directed at @POTUSI have directed a full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern.
-USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlo (@USCISJoe) 27 November 2025
The policy guidance is effective immediately and applies to requests pending or filed on or after November 27, 2025.
In a statement, USCIS said that in the wake of the shooting death of two National Guard service members by Afghan national Rahmanullah Laqnawal in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, the agency has issued new guidelines allowing it to consider “negative, country-specific factors” when screening aliens from 19 high-risk countries.
These countries are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Burundi, Chad, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen.
These are the same countries that were subject to the travel ban announced by Trump in a proclamation issued in June this year.
The Proclamation ‘Restriction on Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats’ restricts and limits the entry of these nationals into the US and applies to both immigrants and non-immigrants.
The new guidance comes in the wake of the tragic shootings of 20-year-old US Army specialist Sarah Beckstrom and US Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.
Trump announced Thursday during a call with service members on Thanksgiving that Beckstrom died of his injuries. Wolfe’s condition remains critical.
Lakhanwal, 29, arrived in the US in August 2021 through a Biden-era immigration program called ‘Operation Ally’s Welcome’ for Afghan nationals fleeing their country after the Taliban took over.
USCIS said its new guidance comes after the Trump administration halted the resettlement of refugees from Afghanistan and the entry of Afghan citizens in its first year in office.
“My primary responsibility is to ensure that every alien is screened and screened to the maximum extent possible,” Edlow said. “This also includes assessing where they are coming from and why they are coming.” Edlow said Wednesday’s horrific events made it clear that “the Biden administration spent the last four years dismantling basic vetting and screening standards, prioritizing the rapid resettlement of aliens from high-risk countries over the protection of American citizens”.
He said that effective immediately, he is issuing new policy guidance that authorizes USCIS officers to consider country-specific factors as significant negative factors when reviewing immigration requests.
The updated guidance will allow USCIS officers to more meaningfully assess whether an alien poses a threat to public safety and national security.
Trump has called the shooting a “terrorist attack.” On whether Lakanwal had worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and was investigated, Trump said the man “went crazy. I mean, he went crazy. And that happens to these guys a lot.”
“Look, they come in like this, they’re standing on top of each other like this, and this is an airplane. There were no checks or anything. They came in without checks. And we have many others in this country. We’re going to get them out, but they’re idiots,” Trump said, showing a photo of Afghan civilians being surrounded in a military airplane and being flown to the United States after being captured by the Taliban.
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