Trump administration scaling back asylum crackdown, sources say
The unprecedented move amounted to an indefinite suspension of all asylum requests filed outside of immigration court, regardless of the applicant's nationality.
The Trump administration is scaling back a crackdown on asylum that brought hundreds of thousands of immigration applications to a halt, two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News.
In late November, after the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., allegedly at the hands of an Afghan man who had been granted asylum in 2025, the Trump administration enacted a pause on asylum cases overseen by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. One of those National Guard members died from her injuries .
But the administration has decided to lift the asylum adjudication pause for most cases, except for those filed by nationals from countries affected by a travel ban or steep immigration restrictions stemming from a previous proclamation by President Trump, the DHS sources said, requesting anonymity to describe an internal plan that had not been formally announced.
The asylum freeze will remain in place for immigrants from 39 nations whose citizens currently face full or partial entry restrictions under the "travel ban" proclamation, which Mr. Trump expanded in December. That list includes African countries like Senegal, Somalia and Nigeria; Asian nations like Afghanistan, Iran and Laos; and Latin American countries like Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.
In a statement to CBS News on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed "USCIS has lifted the adjudicative hold for thoroughly screened asylum seekers from non high-risk countries."