Asylum Freeze, Afghan Limbo, New U-Visa Report, Colombia Clowns Moreno, Portland Plate Trackers
Plus, MIGRANT INSIDER IS FINALLY ON YOUTUBE!!!
GOOD MORNING! LOTS TO COVER THIS AM … so let’s jump right in: Last night, we finally launched Migrant Insider on YouTube. Here’s the first video:
I’m super excited about this. It took a lot to learn how to capture, edit, and configure an immigration video according to the platform’s norms. It would mean a ton if you subscribed to us there.
MIGRANT INSIDER is sponsored by
TOP STORY: TRUMP FREEZES ASYLUM
The Trump administration has effectively paused all affirmative asylum decisions in the United States, a move with immediate consequences for roughly 1.5 million people with pending applications. According to USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, the freeze will remain in effect “until every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
The pause, announced as a direct response to the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., allegedly by an Afghan national, represents one of the most consequential moves on the immigration beat in a year of utter upheaval — reshaping how and whether people can win protection inside the U.S. and setting up a likely wave of legal challenges and congressional scrutiny.
The administration is not stopping there. USCIS is simultaneously reexamining asylum and refugee grants issued during the Biden years, potentially reopening tens of thousands of already-settled cases for people who currently hold lawful status. This creates a dual squeeze: new asylum seekers are frozen in legal limbo, and those who have already received protection now face the prospect of losing it.
Unanswered Questions: How will USCIS operationally handle 1.4 to 1.5 million pending cases during the pause? Is work authorization renewal being processed, or are applicants effectively frozen across all immigration benefits? Will the “pause” extend beyond affirmative asylum to other humanitarian categories—certain parole adjudications or TPS-related cases—or are agencies keeping those moving? Civil rights litigation is already being signaled; watch for emergency lawsuits arguing the blanket freeze violates statutory asylum rights and the Administrative Procedure Act.
THE REST OF IT.
AFGHANS OUT IN THE COLD
The crackdown has a sharp geographic and national-origin focus. USCIS has suspended all immigration benefit requests related to Afghan nationals, including green cards, work permits, family reunification petitions, and related applications. The State Department has halted visa issuance to people traveling on Afghan passports, effectively closing the last major legal avenue—the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program—for Afghans who worked with U.S. forces.
Advocacy groups estimate roughly 180,000 Afghans were in the SIV pipeline; they are now frozen in place as processing stops. This represents a dramatic reversal of long-standing bipartisan commitments to Afghan allies who supported U.S. military operations. News reports are already highlighting individual cases of long-time residents and previously “protected” categories—evacuees, long-vetted refugees—losing their exceptions overnight.
The Pressure Point: Historically, Republican and Democratic lawmakers have backed Afghan allies. Watch closely whether any Republicans break with Trump over shutting down SIVs and refugee pathways. Backlash from veterans’ groups could force the administration to narrow implementation or carve out exceptions.
RESCREENING THE ALREADY-APPROVED
The administration is moving aggressively against people who already hold, or are applying for, permanent status from a list of 19 “countries of concern,” many in the Middle East and Africa. USCIS says it is conducting a “full scale, rigorous reexamination” of every green card issued to people from these 19 countries, raising the bar for future applications.
Trump and senior officials are openly floating denaturalization as a response to immigrants who allegedly “undermine domestic tranquility,” raising fears that citizenship itself could become politicized. This pushes U.S. policy into largely untested territory: mass re-screening of already-approved immigrants and normalization of denaturalization rhetoric. It injects major uncertainty into the lives of hundreds of thousands of lawful residents and raises fundamental questions about rule of law and due process.
To Monitor: Who is actually being re-screened first? Recent arrivals? Specific countries? Certain security flags? Or is this framed as a universal review? Are there any concrete legal steps toward expanded denaturalization, or is this staying mainly rhetorical?
THE RHETORIC: “PERMANENT PAUSE” ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Alongside specific administrative steps, Trump and top allies are escalating rhetoric pointing toward a near-total shutdown of immigration from many countries. Trump publicly declared he wants to “permanently pause” immigration from “Third-World countries,” signaling an intent to drastically narrow who can come to the U.S. at all. He has threatened to halt refugee admissions indefinitely and is already presiding over an effective freeze on most resettlement, with exceptions carved out for white South Africans.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said she is recommending a “full travel ban” on countries she claims are “flooding” the U.S. with dangerous migrants, suggesting additional executive actions may be imminent. The rhetoric and early moves point toward a structural remaking of the U.S. immigration system away from a universal, rules-based model toward a selective, ideologically filtered one, with national-origin-based restrictions at its core.
WHAT’S NEXT
New executive orders are expected from Trump. The White House has signaled a wave of immigration-related orders; observers are watching for a formalized new travel ban list and a codified long-term or indefinite halt to most refugee admissions.
International and diplomatic fallout is inevitable. Countries on the “of concern” list or with paused visas may respond diplomatically; NGOs will highlight impacts on global refugee resettlement and U.S. credibility.
Congressional positioning will be key. Any movement on legislation—either codifying parts of this approach or, conversely, trying to constrain it—will be a barometer of how much political space the administration has.
The difference between a week-long emergency response and a multi-year structural shift will hinge on whether these restrictions get formalized into enduring bans or statutory changes.
BREAKING: NEW HRW REPORT SLAMS U-VISA ROLLBACKS
Human Rights Watch just released a sweeping report documenting how the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement is dismantling the U visa program—a tool designed to encourage crime victims to report crimes and cooperate with law enforcement.
The report, based on 43 interviews with law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and survivors across six states, reveals the central problem: the Trump administration has revoked long-standing federal guidance that instructed ICE agents not to detain or deport people with victim-based immigration status.
New guidance issued in late January 2025 “rescinded and superseded” these 15-year-old protections. The result is immediate chilling of reporting. A survey of 170 immigration advocates and attorneys found over 75 percent report their clients are now fearful of contacting police, while over 70 percent say clients have concerns about going to court related to their abuse.
Stark paradox: Law enforcement officials emphasize that the U visa is a crime-fighting tool. From 2017 to 2023, noncitizen victims cooperated with police on 2.5 million crimes, resulting in 257,000 arrests. Yet by deporting or threatening deportation of crime victims, the administration dismantles the mechanism that helps police detect and prosecute crimes.
HRW documents cases where U visas enabled survivors to escape abusers and participate in prosecutions. One Minnesota prosecutor’s office, after implementing a “survivor-centered” approach to U visa certification, saw certifications jump from 14 in 2023 to over 450 by August 2024. Now, with ICE appearing at crime scenes and courthouses, prosecutors warn that “getting people to come forward is based on trust and that trust can be taken away if there is a perception that law enforcement is cooperating with ICE.”
The non-profit is calling on Congress to eliminate the 10,000-per-year cap on U visas, increase USCIS adjudicators to speed processing, and expand qualifying crimes. More urgently, it urges DHS to reinstate the ICE policy directive instructing agents not to detain those with pending U visa petitions and to restore “sensitive location guidelines” prohibiting enforcement at courthouses, healthcare centers, and victim service providers.
Powerful: Law enforcement and human rights advocates are in rare agreement: the policies announced this week will not make Americans safer. They will make abusers safer—and communities less safe.
THE SIDEBAR
CRINGE LEGISLATION
Yesterday, Ohio freshman Senator Bernie Moreno dropped a new bill, the “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025,” which would outlaw dual citizenship for Americans by forcing people to choose between U.S. nationality and any foreign passport.
Under the draft, anyone who already holds another citizenship would have one year to formally renounce it or be deemed to have voluntarily given up U.S. citizenship. Anyone who acquires foreign citizenship after enactment would be treated as having relinquished U.S. citizenship.
Luckily, it’s a dumb bill and won’t pass. It flies in the face of decades of Supreme Court precedent affirming the right of Americans to hold dual citizenship, and it’s unworkable as a matter of practical enforcement.
COLOMBIAN CLAPBACK
On X, Colombian President Gustavo Petro quote-posted Moreno’s “Deport more, much more” slogan with a pointed question: “¿Dónde naciste Bernie?”—Where were you born, Bernie? The clapback is the latest round in a months-long online feud in which Petro has framed Moreno as a Trump-aligned hardliner targeting Colombian migrants abroad.
Moreno was born in Colombia in 1976, before his family relocated to the United States; he is a naturalized U.S. citizen. The irony is thick: the freshman senator pushing aggressive anti-immigration policies and now attacking dual citizenship is himself an immigrant trying to use his immigrant story as political cover for policies that would strip dual citizens of their U.S. status.
ICE TRACKER — PORTLAND
In Portland, immigrant-rights advocates and privacy organizers are crowdsourcing the license plates of what they describe as Trump’s deportation agents, posting an online database that now lists 627 suspected DHS and ICE-related vehicle records tied to federal enforcement activity in the region. The project is unfolding as Oregon lawmakers and local governments wrestle with automated license plate readers and data-sharing with federal agencies.
ICYMI, YESTERDAY —
Fired Immigration Judge Sues Pam Bondi
WASHINGTON — A former federal immigration judge is suing Attorney General Pamela Bondi and the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging she was abruptly fired because she is a woman, the U.S.-born daught…
Follow us on YouTube, por favor!
Another unanswered question related to the paused asylum adjudications -- will the government pause collections of the annual asylum fees that were recently set forth in the OBBB? Or will the cases stay pending in limbo, with the government collecting $100 every year for each application, without any intention of reaching a decision on the case? (Of course, we know the answer to this.)
⭐ “Grandmas & Grandpas in the Info War Fight!” ⭐
Dear Grandmas and Grandpas
From sea to bright sea,
A message is calling
For you and for me—
We’re living a battle
Of truth vs. spin,
Where the lies try to shout
And the facts try to win.
The Fox-MAGA megaphone
Blasts night and day,
With deepfakes and nonsense
All flying our way.
They twist up the stories,
They scramble the facts,
They feed folks confusion
Through digital tracks.
But we have a power
They don’t understand—
A lifetime of wisdom
And hearts that withstand.
So, gather your courage,
Your coffee, your chair—
Let’s jump in the fight
With some digital flair!
“Use ChatGPT?”
Oh yes, indeed do!
It helps write the truth
In a style fresh and new.
It helps draft a comment,
A post, or a share,
It helps check a rumor
For truth hiding there.
Our allies are speaking—
Each brave, steady voice:
Democracy Docket,
Brian Tyler Cohen,
MeidasTouch,
Really American—
All lighting the choice.
They’re naming the dangers,
They’re waving the flags,
While Miller and MAGA
Rev up ICE drag-rags.
But we won’t stay silent,
We won’t disappear—
We’ll speak for our families
With truth loud and clear.
Remember the elders
Who fought long ago—
In France under Nazis,
They whispered, “Let’s go!”
With papers and pamphlets
Passed hand-to-hand fast,
They fought for the future
To outshine the past.
And grandmas in kitchens
Behind Iron Curtain,
Read banned words aloud
Just to keep others certain.
If they held the lanterns
In darkness so grim,
Then surely we rise
When democracy dims.
We’ve keyboards!
We’ve wifi!
We’ve tools they could dream!
We’ve posts, memes, and Substacks
To strengthen the team.
So pick up your laptop,
Your iPad or phone—
Let’s show this new era
We’re not overthrown.
Let’s teach all the grands
How to vet, check, and see,
How to sort out the noise
From reality.
For truth needs defenders,
Not watchers who yawn—
So stand with me proudly,
My Silver Fox Dawn.
If you can scroll Facebook,
You can write what is right.
If you tell a good story,
You can shine someone’s night.
And if you’re still here,
Reading bold, standing tall—
You’re already a soldier
In freedom’s great call.
So onward, dear friends,
With our lanterns of light—
We’ll beam through the darkness
And win this truth fight.
🦅 #ResharingBrigade | #GrandparentsForTruth | #IndependentMedia | #LightInTheDarkness 💙❤️