Ximena Bustillo

The memo says the agency should, quote, only admit refugees that can fully and appropriately assimilate.

Immigration advocates have called the recent changes on refugee reviews, visa and green card applications,

Deeply destabilizing to families already in the U.S.

We're going to be talking about a few different types of immigration processes.

First, the administration paused all asylum decisions and also visa reviews for people from Afghanistan.

An order from the State Department also pauses the Special Immigrant Visa for Afghans, which is a specific program for those who helped the U.S.

military and its allies.

To be clear, the suspect was not on that visa, but like you mentioned, had been granted asylum earlier this year under the Trump administration.

Second, Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, said anyone who applies for a green card from one of 19 countries on a list will face heightened scrutiny, and that list includes Afghanistan.

Trump officials argue that those who came to the U.S.

under former President Biden through these legal processes were not vetted properly.

Still in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said investigators have other leads.

These changes came days after the administration said it would review refugee status of those already living in the U.S.

A refugee is a person outside the U.S.

who is forced to flee their home country due to violence, persecution, or other issues that put them in danger.

The process can take years of vetting before someone is approved to enter the U.S.

Now the administration is reconsidering those already here.

I obtained a memo issued by the Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services late last month.

That memo calls for reviewing all refugees admitted into the country under the Biden administration, essentially reopening their cases.