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 have been downstairs on the household’s residence on Lengthy Island, N.Y., on Tuesday, in keeping with a video reviewed by The Occasions 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 taking pictures of two Nationwide Guard members per week earlier in Washington, D.C.
“He has nothing to do with that taking pictures,” Nyazi, 27, recalled answering. “We don’t even know that particular person.”
Her protests didn’t matter. The Trump administration has put into movement a broad and unprecedented set of coverage adjustments geared toward considerably limiting authorized immigration avenues, together with for immigrants lengthy thought of probably the most susceptible.
Sadly, I feel the administration took this one very tragic incident and politicized it as a strategy 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 taking pictures which left one Nationwide Guard member useless, he’s from Afghanistan.
The administration has paused selections on all purposes filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers, or USCIS, by individuals searching for 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 instances of individuals from 19 nations the administration considers “high-risk” and can conduct case-by-case evaluations of inexperienced playing cards and different immigration advantages given to individuals from these nations since former President Biden took workplace in 2021.
Immigration attorneys say they discovered 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 instances, immigration officers instructed immigrants that they’d been ready to grant a inexperienced card, however have 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 instances pending with USCIS.
“These are sweeping adjustments that actual collective punishment on a large swath of people who find themselves making an attempt to do issues the precise method,” mentioned Amanda Baran, former chief of coverage and technique at USCIS below the Biden administration. “I fear about all of the individuals who have dutifully filed purposes and whose lives are actually on maintain.”
Administration officers known as the Nov. 26 taking pictures a “terrorist assault” and defended the adjustments as mandatory to guard the nation. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, faces expenses stemming from the taking pictures that killed Military Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and critically wounded Air Drive Employees Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.
“The safety of this nation and of the American individuals stays paramount, and the American individuals won’t 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 below investigation. In Afghanistan, he served in a counterterrorism unit operated by the CIA.
Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 via a Biden administration program that resettled almost 200,000 Afghans within the wake of the U.S. withdrawal, officers mentioned. He utilized for asylum in December 2024 and it was accepted below the Trump administration in April, in keeping with a press release by the nonprofit #AfghanEvac.
Afghans who labored with U.S. troops have been believed to face hazard if left behind below 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 experiences from 2024 and this yr pointed to some failings of the screening, together with knowledge inaccuracies and the presence of 55 evacuees who have 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 menace.
It’s unclear precisely how the administration will perform evaluations of 1000’s of people that already dwell legally within the U.S. The federal authorities can’t simply strip individuals of everlasting authorized standing. The specter of reopening instances, nevertheless, has sparked alarm in immigrant communities throughout the nation.
About 58,600 Afghan immigrants name California residence as of 2023, excess of another state, in keeping with the Migration Coverage Institute. Interviews with a dozen area people advocates, immigration attorneys and members of the family of these detained paint an aggressive effort by the federal authorities to spherical up current Afghan immigrants within the wake of the D.C. taking pictures.
“Sadly, I feel the administration took this one very tragic incident and politicized it as a strategy 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 taking pictures in a spate of coverage adjustments final week.
On Friday, USCIS introduced it had established a brand new middle to strengthen screening with supplemental evaluations of immigration purposes, partly utilizing synthetic intelligence. The USCIS Vetting Middle, primarily based in Atlanta, will “centralize enhanced vetting of aliens and permit the company to reply extra nimbly to adjustments in a shifting menace 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 instances of individuals from the 19 nations additionally topic to a journey ban, USCIS acknowledged that the adjustments may end in processing delays however had decided it was “mandatory and applicable” 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 non permanent 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 don’t have any private connection.
Earlier than the Washington taking pictures, a Nov. 21 memo confirmed that the administration deliberate to assessment the instances of greater than 200,000 refugees admitted below 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 particular person allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk, however “I don’t see any ICE brokers going into white individuals’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.
“Below 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 via Biden’s fraudulent parole applications and dealing to get the criminals and public security threats OUT of our nation,” McLaughlin mentioned in a press release.
Nyazi mentioned the costs, which didn’t stem from incidents of bodily violence, have been dropped and his document was later expunged.
She and her husband bought engaged in 2019 in Afghanistan and utilized for a fiance visa, as a result of Nyazi is a U.S. citizen. Their utility was accepted 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, government director of the San Francisco Bay Space chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and others say Afghans in numerous phases of their authorized immigration course of — not solely these with deportation orders — have been focused. She mentioned a minimum of 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 they’d sought asylum.
Paris Etemadi Scott, authorized director of the Pars Equality Middle in San José, mentioned three of her shoppers, an Afghan mom and her two sons who’re each of their early 20s, have 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 Middle, mentioned her Afghan consumer, 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 particular person the subsequent day, the place he was detained.
Because the taking pictures, 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 subsequent day, Trump referred to Somali immigrants as “rubbish” who “contribute nothing.” (A couple of days later, Noem mentioned the administration would develop 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 current days, a ghostly quiet has overtaken Shafiullah Hotak’s common haunts in North Sacramento, the place the Afghan inhabitants within the metropolis is particularly dense. Hotak, 38, is an Afghan immigrant who served as a program supervisor at refugee resettlement group Lao Household Group Growth till layoffs because of federal cuts compelled him out of labor in Might.
On Thursday, immigration brokers banged on doorways at an condo complicated on Marconi Avenue, the place lots of of Afghans have resettled. Only one worker sat in an Afghan-owned tax and bookkeeping enterprise that was usually buzzing with shoppers. A close-by park, the place youngsters kick round soccer balls and guffawing packs of youngsters roam after faculty, was empty. And the traces at a halal market identified for its sesame-topped Afghan bread had disappeared.
“The scenario we’ve got in our group jogs my memory of after we used to go to work in Afghanistan,” Hotak mentioned. “We needed to take completely different routes day-after-day as a result of individuals who have been in opposition to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan have been concentrating on individuals. 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, to be able to blind their operations.
“However these days these ‘eyes’ are right here within the U.S. and the U.S. authorities is seeking to choose them up and put them in jail,” Hotak mentioned.
Occasions workers writers Castillo reported from Washington and Hussain and Uranga from Los Angeles.
