Immigrants from travel ban countries wait in limbo in U.S. – NPR

Deep Dive

Immigration

Stuck in limbo: millions of professionals risk losing legal status under Trump pause

Updated April 28, 202610:34 AM ET, Heard on All Things Considered

By Ximena Bustillo, 5-Minute Listen

The U.S. travel ban against 39 countries has thrown thousands of people into legal limbo, as the Trump administration has paused reviewing visa, green card, work permit, and citizenship applications.

Nicole Xu for NPR

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The lives of hundreds of thousands of people were thrown into limbo after the Trump administration hit pause on reviewing their visa, green card, work permit and citizenship applications.

The pause is targeted at those born in one of 39 countries, including Nigeria, Myanmar and Venezuela. The U.S. imposed travel restrictions on most of those countries after an Afghan national shot two National Guardsmen on a Washington, D.C. street in late November.

Five months in, and the impact has been catastrophic for many people from those countries already living in the U.S., whether they’re going to school or working in lucrative labor sectors like oil and gas, technology and medicine. NPR spoke with more than a dozen people on condition of anonymity, because they all fear adverse consequences for their immigration applications if they speak publicly. They asked NPR to not use their full names and name them only by their first initials.

Their experiences mirror each other: sudden financial insecurity, months of unemployment, academic and professional opportunities lost — and a crippling anxiety over the abrupt inability to live or work legally in the U.S.

The pause is just one part of a larger effort by the administration to restrict legal forms of migration and boost mass deportation of immigrants.

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“It hit really hard because I was actually in line for a promotion in July,” said A, who leads a cancer clinical research team in Ohio and is from Myanmar. She has been in the U.S. since 2016. Her work authorization, which has been renewed before, is now paused by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “It’s very disappointing to know that something I’ve been working really hard towards for the last few years is now going to be out of reach just because of where I was born.”

The pause is also hurting some U.S. citizens who want to get legal status for their immigrant spouses — and the Americans who rely on foreign-born workers in dozens of key industries, from health care to cybersecurity. For example, in the U.S., both naturalized and noncitizen foreign-born workers work in STEM fields, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics, at slightly higher rates than U.S.-born workers, according to the latest data from the National Science Foundation.

The Trump administration says the pause is necessary while officials update the policies and procedures for reviewing these applications.

Loss of opportunity is a common theme. M, who lives in Virginia and is from Nigeria, first came to the U.S. in 2011 for her undergraduate and master’s degrees. She then pursued her medical degree and last month got into, or matched, with a surgery residency program in Oregon. But because of the hold, her visas and work permit processing are frozen. That means she may not be able to start her residency at all.

“I cried so much the day after my match, because I was overwhelmed with the fact that I worked so hard to get to this point. And I look around me and all my classmates are celebrating because they are celebrating with certainty,” M said. She said her work permit had been pending for a month by the time matches for residency were announced.

“I had so much anxiety and uncertainty around me that, yes, I did take the pictures and I was very happy to match,” she said. “But just because of my place of birth and my citizenship — that’s taking it away from me.”

Some immigrants said they paid up to $3,000 for what the USCIS calls premium processing, meaning their renewals and transfers should be decided in a matter of weeks, not months. No matter the payment, everyone from the list of travel ban countries have been left waiting.

“I really cannot move on with my life. And I really cannot contribute to the United States because I am from Nigeria,” said P, who lives in Texas. He came to the U.S. in 2023 and graduated with an engineering masters degree in December. He said he had to turn down multiple job offers because his work permit cannot be processed. “I barely can feed [myself]. I barely can pay bills. It is overwhelming and sad.”

Although originally labeled by officials as a temporary pause, some holds have already been dubbed “bans” in court.

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For example, as a part of documents filed in a lawsuit challenging the pause, lawyers submitted a statement from then-USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser that said optional practical training applications, which allow international students to temporarily work, are banned specifically for Iranians and will not be processed.

The pause on processing applications means that those awaiting a decision could see their legal status lapse entirely — making them susceptible to immigration detention and deportation.

“There’s no refund. It’s a scam. It’s a fraud,” David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said about the premium processing. He estimates that the federal government has received over $1 billion in fees paid for these premium applications to be processed.

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