As soon as he took the seat, President Donald Trump made some significant changes in the administration — and that includes the controversial executive order on immigration. This law includes a travel ban for citizens of seven Muslim countries. It even applies to green card holders from those countries. Also, the administration is working on a proposed reform to immigrant visas. With all these changes, it won’t be surprising if an issue in naturalization will come up, as well.
USCIS Announcement
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed to the media that Trump’s 90-day suspension of immigration benefits to nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen won’t affect those who are in the process of gaining US citizenship through naturalization. The report also says the agency will continue to adjudicate N-400 citizenship applications. Moreover, it reassures the public that it will administer citizenship based on their prior practices, which citizenship lawyers in Orem and other cities know.
Being Put On-Hold
Despite the reassuring USCIS announcement, several citizenship applications from the nationals of the seven countries mentioned above are on hold. In turn, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration. The document showed that after the president had signed the immigration order, at least two officials within USCIS sent internal communications barring any actions on applications involving nationals of the countries included in Trump’s travel ban. As claimed in the lawsuit, these actions resulted in the holding of many citizenship applications. Trump’s immigration order is no longer just about the travel ban, as it now hinders several people from completing their naturalization proceedings, as well.
You can’t blame many foreign national for applying for naturalization proceedings. For one, they will no longer be restricted to travel back and forth to the US as soon as they get their additional US citizenship. More importantly, they would gain full protection from one thing most of them fear — deportation.