Asylum seekers across US in limbo over Trump’s policy reversals: ‘devastating’

News that the Trump administration has paused asylum decisions, halted visas for Afghans who assisted the US war effort and is reevaluating green card applications for people from countries “of concern” has left asylum seekers across the US reeling – and pushed deeper into limbo.

“People say that fear travels faster than information. And that’s exactly what has happened,” said Reza Hussaini, a 23-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan who came to the US in 2022 and is still awaiting an interview to evaluate his case.

Immigration lawyers and advocates are still trying to understand exactly how the Trump administration’s flurry of immigration policies restricting asylum and legal immigration would be implemented. The far-reaching policy announcements, aimed at dramatically curtailing legal pathways to immigration, came after Donald Trump vowed to “permanently pause” migration from “third world” countries following last week’s shooting of two national guard members in DC by a suspect who is an Afghan national.

The new rules could affect nearly 1.5m pending asylum cases with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Legal experts expect that the broader asylum pause and other policy changes will face challenges in court. Advocates have warned that the administration’s policy announcements targeting refugees, asylum seekers and specifically Afghan nationals following the shooting amounts to collective punishment.

Hussaini – like many other Afghans and asylum seekers in the US – doesn’t know how his immigration case, or those of his friends and community, would be affected. “But it kind of puts me in a corner … Even more than fear, it’s uncertainty about what my status could be, what’s going to happen next, what my future is going to look like. What if I get deported back to Afghanistan – back to a government that sees me as the enemy?”

Hussaini says he survived two terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. He began working with non-profit organizations in Afghanistan as a teen, advocating for education, women’s rights, and democracy. He was detained and questioned by the Taliban forces in 2021, he said, and escaped via Pakistan shortly after. If the US expels him now, he fears he’ll have an even bigger target on his back than before.

“It appears that the intention of these policies is to be demoralizing,” said Faisal Al-Juburi, head of external affairs at the legal aid group Raíces, which has more than 50 pending asylum cases with USCIS. “And it’s leaving people in a limbo, creating a greater sense of unease, of opacity around people’s future.”

Lawyers and advocates at Raíces have been working to reassure asylum seekers and other immigrants that not all the proposed policy changes may be legal, he said, and that attorneys across the US will be seeking to understand and clarify the impacts. “We can’t go by what ifs, because right now, there is no clear picture.”

What is certain is that asylum seekers are looking at an even longer process than they had been expecting. USCIS director Joseph B. Edlow said that the agency “has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”

That pause will exacerbate an already spiralling backlog of pending asylum cases, said Yliana Johansen-Méndez, the chief program officer at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “For those people that have been waiting for eight years for their interviews, who thought they were finally going to get some resolution and some protection and some stability, it’s just going to prolong their wait.”

Indeed, while the pause announcement has rattled many asylum seekers, the fact that the asylum process already stretches out over a long time has dulled the sting. “The process is so slow. So what’s some statement that they’re not going to process asylum applications, that there’s going to be another year added to an already years-long process?” said Dave Meyer, a volunteer with the Bloomington Refugee Support Network in Indiana, which helps immigrants adjust to life in the US, and find services and access to medical care.

Amir, who fled Afghanistan and came to the US via Mexico last year, said he still doesn’t understand what the policy changes mean for him. The Guardian is not using his real name to protect his privacy and safety.

“I don’t know exactly what it means, but I know everyone with a pending case is worried,” he said. The USCIS policy change applies to “affirmative” asylum cases – filed by migrants who are in the US, and are not in deportation proceedings. But Amir has a “defensive” asylum case – he is facing removal and will have the chance to make a case for asylum in front of an immigration judge under the Department of Justice next year.

“I don’t know what will happen. But I think it’s not fair to blame all immigrants for the actions of one person,” he said. “And I hope that if we haven’t done any crimes, if we haven’t done anything wrong, then this won’t affect us.”

Still, he and pretty much every other asylum seeker and Afghan immigrant he knows is either confused or afraid, or both, he said. Amir is part of the Hazara Shia minority in Afghanistan, which has faced escalating violence and persecution since 2021. ‘There is no safe place for us in Afghanistan.”

Hussaini, who has also helped several Afghans who worked with US military with their immigration cases, said he has been fielding frantic messages from many of them in the past few days.

One man, who worked with the US military for 20 years before being forced to flee Afghanistan, finally obtained asylum after a harrowing, months-long process. He was deflated on the phone, worried that his status could be ripped away. “It’s that feeling of starting everything from zero again,” Hussaini said.

He has also been struggling to maintain a sense of steadiness amid the uncertainty, he said. “I used to think coffee tastes nasty. But since what has happened, the only way I can escape is I just run every few hours to the gas station to get some coffee and drink it, just to calm my mind,” he said. “It’s hard. It’s devastating.”