The Trump administration has directed immigration officers to evaluation the instances of refugees admitted beneath former President Joe Biden, as a part of an unprecedented effort to determine potential causes that may disqualify them from having the ability to keep within the U.S., an inner federal authorities memo obtained by CBS Information exhibits.
The memo, dated Nov. 21 and signed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies Director Joseph Edlow, instructs company officers to analyze the instances of refugees who entered the U.S. over a four-year interval, between Jan. 20, 2021, and Feb. 20, 2025.
Edlow directed USCIS officers to evaluation the instances of all refugees admitted throughout this time interval, and to doubtlessly reinterview them. These investigations and reinterviews, Edlow wrote, would give attention to figuring out whether or not these people met the definition of a refugee after they entered the U.S. and whether or not there are any authorized limitations that may make them ineligible to change into everlasting residents of the U.S.
The memo additionally positioned an indefinite maintain on all pending purposes for inexperienced playing cards (or everlasting residency) filed by refugees allowed into the nation through the timeframe outlined within the memo. Underneath U.S. legislation, refugees are eligible for everlasting residency one 12 months after being admitted.
Edlow famous that candidates can’t attraction any denials of their inexperienced card instances. If the instances of “principal” refugees — or the primary applicant in the event that they arrived with their members of the family — are rejected, their kin’ instances would even be denied, and they’d be stripped of their refugee standing, based on the memo. These whose purposes are denied might be positioned in deportation proceedings.
Refugees should show they suffered or fled persecution overseas based mostly on one among 5 elements: their race, nationality, faith, political opinion or membership in a social group.
Some 233,000 refugees entered the U.S. between February 2021 and January 2025, a interval that largely traces up with the Biden administration, based on federal statistics.
The federal authorities paused the refugee program shortly after President Trump retook workplace. Officers have made restricted exceptions, principally for Afrikaners, or individuals in South Africa who’re the descendants of European settlers.
Final month, the Trump administration capped refugee admissions for this fiscal 12 months at 7,500, the bottom degree in historical past. These slots will “primarily be allotted amongst Afrikaners,” who the Trump administration alleges have confronted discrimination in South Africa for being White, and “different victims of unlawful or unjust discrimination of their respective homelands.” The South African authorities has denied that Afrikaners are being persecuted.
Earlier than the pause, refugees sometimes spent years in third nations present process medical checks, safety screenings and interviews previous to being admitted into the U.S.
However in his memo, Edlow stated the Trump administration believes the Biden administration “prioritized expediency, amount, and admissions over high quality interviews and detailed screening and vetting.”
The memo was first reported by CNN.
CBS Information has reached out to DHS for remark.
