The Trump administration is rolling back a broad asylum freeze that had put hundreds of thousands of applications on hold, two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News.
After a late-November shooting in Washington, D.C., in which two National Guard members were wounded and one later died — an attack alleged to have been carried out by an Afghan man who had been granted asylum in 2025 — the administration imposed an indefinite suspension of asylum decisions made by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). That pause applied to asylum requests filed outside immigration court, regardless of applicants’ nationalities.
DHS officials said the administration will now lift the adjudicative hold for most cases, while keeping the suspension in place for nationals of 39 countries already subject to full or partial entry restrictions under an expanded travel ban issued in December. The list of affected countries includes Senegal, Somalia and Nigeria in Africa; Afghanistan, Iran and Laos in Asia; and Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela in Latin America.
In a statement to CBS News, DHS said, “USCIS has lifted the adjudicative hold for thoroughly screened asylum seekers from non high-risk countries,” adding that the change “allows resources to focus on continued rigorous national security and public safety vetting for higher-risk cases” and that “maximum screening and vetting for ALL aliens continues unabated.”
The administration is also keeping other immigration applications from nationals of the 39 listed countries on hold — including requests for work permits, green cards and naturalization — a freeze that was instituted after the D.C. shooting and remains active.
This adjustment is part of a wider set of measures by the second Trump administration to tighten legal immigration: limits on work authorization for asylum seekers, renewed reviews of refugees admitted under the prior administration, and expanded vetting procedures. Administration officials say the steps address fraud and national security gaps and restore stricter screening they argue had been loosened. Pro-immigration advocates counter that the policies punish lawful applicants and unfairly restrict immigrants who are complying with the process.