Nigeria Exempted as US Plans Review of Green Cards Issued to Migrants from 19 Countries

The United States has announced plans to re-examine all green cards issued to nationals of 19 countries as part of a broad review of immigration records.

The move is part of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants following the shooting of two national guard members by a suspect named Rahmanullah Lakanwal from Afghanistan.

“At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” Joe Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), wrote in an X post on Thursday.

“The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies. American safety is non negotiable.”

The 19 countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

The USCIS said when vetting immigrants from those 19 countries, the agency will now take into consideration “negative, country specific factors”, which includes whether the country is able “to issue secure identity documents”.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it would stop processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals pending further review of security and vetting protocols. The decision is effective immediately.

The DHS also said the administration is reviewing all asylum cases that were approved under former President Joe Biden.

Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 under a programme that offered special immigration protections to Afghans in the wake of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Authorities have confirmed that he once worked alongside the CIA in Afghanistan.