The Department of Defense is committed to supporting the U.S. State Department in the departure of U.S. and allied civilian personnel from Afghanistan, and to evacuate Afghan allies safely. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Brandon Cribelar)
After the shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan national admitted under a Biden program and now on overstay, President Trump ordered the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to conduct a full review of green cards issued to immigrants from 19 countries the administration considers high-risk.
USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said the agency will reexamine every green card from these countries, along with all asylum approvals granted under the Biden administration. The administration also suspended all immigration requests involving Afghan nationals and issued guidance allowing negative, country-specific factors to be used in vetting.
USCIS listed the 19 high-risk countries, including Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Cuba, Laos, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Afghanistan had previously been included in Trump’s travel ban, which restricted entry from several nations due to concerns about vetting and visa overstays.
Advocacy groups criticized the administration’s actions. Arash Azizzada of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow said U.S. foreign policy contributed to Afghan displacement and that punishing an entire community for one individual’s actions is unjust.
If Afghans were truly being targeted solely because of one man’s actions, that would be wrong. But the reality is that most of the 200,000 Afghans admitted to the United States under multiple Biden-era programs were not properly vetted, do not have permanent status, and the government does not know where many of them are.
These admissions came through a patchwork of channels, including humanitarian parole during the 2021 evacuation, the Enduring Welcome program, new private-sponsorship pathways, and expanded family-reunification options that allowed parolees to bring in relatives.
Because these were emergency or discretionary parole routes rather than traditional immigration pathways, they involved far weaker screening than what is required for a green card or citizenship. As a result, the government has incomplete records and no reliable system to track many of the entrants.
Several of the same programs allowed Afghan parolees to sponsor additional relatives who were admitted under the same reduced standards, meaning entire family groups entered without the level of vetting required for traditional immigration applicants. Only a small share of these individuals qualified for Special Immigrant Visas or refugee status, and federal audits show the government still lacks a functioning system to monitor expiring parole or confirm the whereabouts of many parolees today.
The vetting failures seen in the Afghan admissions programs reflect broader weaknesses across multiple immigration and resettlement pathways, including long-standing gaps in auditing and oversight of various residency categories such as green cards. As of January 2024 the United States had about 12.8 million lawful permanent residents, and in fiscal year 2023 the government issued about 1.17 million new green cards through family-based, employment-based, and refugee or asylee adjustments.
A green card does not guarantee permanent status, and permanent residency can be rescinded through a formal legal process before an immigration judge. Cards must be renewed, conditional residency requires petitions to remove conditions, and permanent residents remain subject to removal for criminal activity, immigration violations, or support for terrorism.
Customs and Border Protection has warned that permanent residents with prior criminal convictions may be detained at ports of entry and placed into removal proceedings. This warning is part of the administration’s broader enforcement effort, which includes detaining or invalidating the visas of applicants and taking action against foreign nationals connected to extremist activity, including pro-Hamas activism on college campuses.
These concerns underpin President Trump’s order for a government-wide green-card review. The review focuses on countries associated with large parole populations or significant security and documentation risks. It directs agencies to re-screen green-card holders from those nations using expanded intelligence and fraud checks and pauses new Afghan immigration while reopening asylum approvals issued during the Biden administration for further scrutiny.
Director Edlow said the updated approach reflects a shift toward stricter vetting and aligns with earlier actions, including halting refugee resettlement from Afghanistan and restricting Afghan entry during Trump’s first year in office. The guidance implements Presidential Proclamation 10949 by adding factors such as a country’s ability to issue secure identity documents into security assessments. It took effect immediately and applies to all pending and newly filed requests as of November 27, 2025.
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