US halts immigration applications from 19 travel-ban countries: US media

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration has paused immigration applications, including green card (permanent resident) and citizenship cases filed by immigrants from 19 countries under US travel restrictions placed earlier this year, US media reported Tuesday.

The internal US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) guidance showed that the agency directed employees on Monday to "stop final adjudication on all cases" involving individuals from 19 nations that are facing restrictions under a presidential proclamation issued in June, known as the travel ban, reported CBS News.

The guidance indicated that the suspension is "an interim step" while the administration works on developing further instructions regarding the vetting of affected immigrants, the report noted.

The New York Times noted that the list of countries includes some of the poorest and most unstable nations in the world.

The latest move comes a few days after last week's shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, in which the suspect was identified as a 29-year-old Afghan who had obtained asylum in April.

US President Donald Trump posted on social media that the United States would "permanently pause" immigration from all "third-world countries", and the State Department announced a halt to issuing visas to Afghan passport holders.

In June, the White House fully restricted and limited the entry of citizens from 12 countries "found to be deficient with regard to screening and vetting and determined to pose a very high risk to the United States".

These countries include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

The US administration also partially restricted and limited the entry of nationals from seven countries "who also pose a high level of risk to the United States", namely Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.