WASHINGTON — Sophia Nyazi’s husband, Milad, shook her awake at 8 a.m. “ICE is right here,” he instructed her.
Three uniformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers had been downstairs on the household’s house on Lengthy Island, N.Y., on Tuesday, in keeping with a video reviewed by The Instances that she captured from atop the staircase.
Nyazi mentioned the brokers requested whether or not her husband was making use of for a inexperienced card. They instructed her they must detain him due to the capturing of two Nationwide Guard members per week earlier in Washington, D.C.
“He has nothing to do with that capturing,” Nyazi, 27, recalled answering. “We don’t even know that individual.”
Her protests didn’t matter. The Trump administration has put into movement a broad and unprecedented set of coverage modifications aimed toward considerably limiting authorized immigration avenues, together with for immigrants lengthy thought of probably the most weak.
Sadly, I feel the administration took this one very tragic incident and politicized it as a method to shut down even authorized immigration
— Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, of the American Immigration Legal professionals Assn.
Milad Nyazi, 28, was detained as a result of, like the person charged within the capturing which left one Nationwide Guard member useless, he’s from Afghanistan.
The administration has paused choices on all purposes filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers, or USCIS, by folks in search of asylum. The visa and immigration purposes of Afghans, whom the U.S. had welcomed in 2021 because it pulled all troops from the nation, have been halted.
Officers additionally froze the processing of immigration circumstances of individuals from 19 nations the administration considers “high-risk” and can conduct case-by-case opinions of inexperienced playing cards and different immigration advantages given to folks from these nations since former President Biden took workplace in 2021.
Immigration legal professionals say they realized that dozens of naturalization ceremonies and interviews for inexperienced playing cards are being canceled for immigrants from Haiti, Iran, Guinea and different nations on the checklist.
In a few circumstances, immigration officers instructed immigrants that that they had been ready to grant a inexperienced card, however had been unable to take action due to the brand new steerage, mentioned Gregory Chen, authorities relations director at American Immigration Legal professionals Assn.
Though it’s unclear precisely how many individuals could possibly be affected by the brand new guidelines, 1.5 million immigrants have asylum circumstances pending with USCIS.
“These are sweeping modifications that precise collective punishment on a large swath of people who find themselves making an attempt to do issues the fitting method,” mentioned Amanda Baran, former chief of coverage and technique at USCIS underneath the Biden administration. “I fear about all of the individuals who have dutifully filed purposes and whose lives at the moment are on maintain.”
Administration officers known as the Nov. 26 capturing a “terrorist assault” and defended the modifications as mandatory to guard the nation. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, faces expenses stemming from the capturing that killed Military Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and critically wounded Air Power Workers Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.
“The safety of this nation and of the American folks stays paramount, and the American folks is not going to bear the price of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement insurance policies,” Joseph Edlow, director of USCIS, mentioned in a message posted Nov. 27 on X. “American security is non-negotiable.”
Lakanwal pleaded not responsible final week and his motive stays underneath investigation. In Afghanistan, he served in a counterterrorism unit operated by the CIA.
Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 by way of a Biden administration program that resettled practically 200,000 Afghans within the wake of the U.S. withdrawal, officers mentioned. He utilized for asylum in December 2024 and it was authorized underneath the Trump administration in April, in keeping with an announcement by the nonprofit #AfghanEvac.
Afghans who labored with U.S. troops had been believed to face hazard if left behind underneath the Taliban-run authorities. Together with present process routine safety screening, they submitted to extra “rigorous” vetting, which included biometric and biographic checks by counterterrorism and intelligence professionals, the Division of Homeland Safety mentioned on the time.
Two federal reviews from 2024 and this yr pointed to some failings of the screening, together with knowledge inaccuracies and the presence of 55 evacuees who had been later recognized on terrorism watch lists, although the latter report famous that the FBI had then adopted all required processes to mitigate any potential risk.
It’s unclear precisely how the administration will perform opinions of 1000’s of people that already stay legally within the U.S. The federal authorities can’t simply strip folks of everlasting authorized standing. The specter of reopening circumstances, nonetheless, has sparked alarm in immigrant communities throughout the nation.
About 58,600 Afghan immigrants name California house as of 2023, excess of some other state, in keeping with the Migration Coverage Institute. Interviews with a dozen local people advocates, immigration attorneys and relations of these detained paint an aggressive effort by the federal authorities to spherical up latest Afghan immigrants within the wake of the D.C. capturing.
“Sadly, I feel the administration took this one very tragic incident and politicized it as a method to shut down even authorized immigration. And it’s positively gone a lot broader than the Afghan group,” mentioned Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, the director of presidency relations on the American Immigration Legal professionals Assn.
Trump administration officers cited the capturing in a spate of coverage modifications final week.
On Friday, USCIS introduced it had established a brand new heart to strengthen screening with supplemental opinions of immigration purposes, partly utilizing synthetic intelligence. The USCIS Vetting Heart, primarily based in Atlanta, will “centralize enhanced vetting of aliens and permit the company to reply extra nimbly to modifications in a shifting risk panorama,” the company mentioned.
On Thursday, USCIS mentioned work permits granted to immigrants would expire after 18 months, not 5 years. The change contains work permits for these admitted as refugees, with pending inexperienced card purposes and with pending asylum purposes.
In a memorandum Tuesday outlining the pause on asylum purposes and the immigration circumstances of individuals from the 19 nations additionally topic to a journey ban, USCIS acknowledged that the modifications might lead to processing delays however had decided it was “mandatory and acceptable” when weighed “in opposition to the company’s obligation to guard and protect nationwide safety.”
Immigrants already had been on excessive alert because the Trump administration canceled momentary humanitarian applications, reduce refugee admissions — aside from a restricted variety of white South African Afrikaners — and elevated makes an attempt to ship these with deportation orders to nations the place they haven’t any private connection.
Earlier than the Washington capturing, a Nov. 21 memo confirmed that the administration deliberate to overview the circumstances of greater than 200,000 refugees admitted underneath the Biden administration. Though asylum seekers apply after arriving within the U.S., refugees apply for admission from outdoors the nation.
Nyazi questioned why Afghans are being singled out, noting {that a} white individual allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk, however “I don’t see any ICE brokers going into white folks’s homes.”
Requested why Milad Nyazi was detained, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant public affairs secretary for Homeland Safety, known as him a prison, citing two arrests on suspicion of home violence.
“Underneath Secretary [Kristi] Noem, DHS has been going full throttle on figuring out and arresting identified or suspected terrorists and prison unlawful aliens that got here in by way of Biden’s fraudulent parole applications and dealing to get the criminals and public security threats OUT of our nation,” McLaughlin mentioned in an announcement.
Nyazi mentioned the costs, which didn’t stem from incidents of bodily violence, had been dropped and his file was later expunged.
She and her husband received engaged in 2019 in Afghanistan and utilized for a fiance visa, as a result of Nyazi is a U.S. citizen. Their utility was authorized in 2021. Quickly after, with the Taliban takeover in full power, the U.S. authorities allowed Milad Nyazi to fly to the U.S. He has a pending inexperienced card utility, Nyazi mentioned.
On Tuesday, the couple’s 3-year-old daughter screamed and cried as her father was handcuffed and brought away. He has a court docket listening to this week.
Zahra Billoo, govt director of the San Francisco Bay Space chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and others say Afghans in numerous levels of their authorized immigration course of — not solely these with deportation orders — have been focused. She mentioned at the very least 17 Afghans within the Bay Space have been detained since Monday.
Legal professionals mentioned lots of the Afghans detained final week had arrived on the U.S.-Mexico border, the place that they had sought asylum.
Paris Etemadi Scott, authorized director of the Pars Equality Heart in San José, mentioned three of her purchasers, an Afghan mom and her two sons who’re each of their early 20s, had been detained Dec. 1 throughout a routine check-in with ICE. All have pending asylum purposes, she mentioned.
Rebecca Olszewski, managing lawyer on the Michigan Immigrant Rights Heart, mentioned her Afghan shopper, who additionally has a pending asylum case, reported for his month-to-month digital check-in Friday and was instructed to point out up in individual the following day, the place he was detained.
For the reason that capturing, administration officers and the president have used dehumanizing language to explain immigrants. In asserting the 19-country journey ban Dec. 1, Noem posted on X that she was recommending a “a full journey ban on each rattling nation that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”
In a Cupboard assembly the following day, Trump referred to Somali immigrants as “rubbish” who “contribute nothing.” (Just a few days later, Noem mentioned the administration would broaden the journey ban to greater than 30 nations.)
On Thanksgiving Day, Trump had mentioned on his social media platform that he intends to “completely pause migration from all Third World Nations” and deport those that are “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
In latest days, a ghostly quiet has overtaken Shafiullah Hotak’s common haunts in North Sacramento, the place the Afghan inhabitants within the metropolis is very dense. Hotak, 38, is an Afghan immigrant who served as a program supervisor at refugee resettlement group Lao Household Neighborhood Improvement till layoffs attributable to federal cuts pressured him out of labor in Might.
On Thursday, immigration brokers banged on doorways at an house advanced on Marconi Avenue, the place a whole bunch of Afghans have resettled. Only one worker sat in an Afghan-owned tax and bookkeeping enterprise that was sometimes buzzing with purchasers. A close-by park, the place youngsters kick round soccer balls and laughing packs of youngsters roam after college, was empty. And the traces at a halal market identified for its sesame-topped Afghan bread had disappeared.
“The scenario we have now in our group jogs my memory of once we used to go to work in Afghanistan,” Hotak mentioned. “We needed to take totally different routes day-after-day as a result of individuals who had been in opposition to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan had been concentrating on folks. There have been bombings and shootings.”
Hotak mentioned “Kill the eyes,” is what the enemies of the U.S. in Afghanistan used to advise as to the right way to cope with native Afghans aiding the navy, as a way to blind their operations.
“However these days these ‘eyes’ are right here within the U.S. and the U.S. authorities is trying to choose them up and put them in jail,” Hotak mentioned.
Instances workers writers Castillo reported from Washington and Hussain and Uranga from Los Angeles.
