US president, Donald Trump, has put a freeze on all immigration applications from 19 countries.
Trump has also cancelled citizenship ceremonies across the US.
This freeze could affect over 1.5 million people who had asylum applications pending and more than 50,000 who received asylum grants under the oe Biden administration, The New York Times reports.
Trump is also considering expanding the travel ban to more than 30 countries.
The new policy memorandum which was released on Tuesday night, singled out last week’s “terror attack” in D.C.
The incident saw Afghan man Rahmanullah Lakanwal arrested for allegedly killing one National Guard member and wounding another.
The ban will apply to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen while the restricted access applied to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
“The Trump administration is making every effort to ensure individuals becoming citizens are the best of the best. Citizenship is a privilege, not a right,” US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser.
“We will take no chances when the future of our nation is at stake.”
