BREAKING: Take Action to Decry Trump Administration’s Cruel Policy Jeopardizing Refugee Status for 233,000 Resettled Refugees
November 24, 2025
Background: On November 24, Reuters reported on an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) memo that ordered a “review and re-interview” of all refugees who entered via the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program under the Biden administration. According to the memo:
- The review and reinterview would apply to all refugees who entered through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) between January 20, 2021 and February 20, 2025 – approximately 233,000 individuals.
- The review will reportedly focus on re-litigating the individual’s case for refugee status, including the circumstances establishing past persecution or well-founded fear, the persecutor bar, and other grounds for inadmissibility.
- The order also requires the halt of USCIS processing of form I-485 for refugees applying for lawful permanent residence (the Refugee Act is clear that refugees shall be considered for a green card after one year in the United States).
This directive is cruel, illegal, and a massive waste of limited USCIS resources. With a net backlog of over 4 million cases, USCIS is using limited available resources to investigate and re-interview refugees without justification. All refugees in the U.S. have gone through an extremely extensive vetting and screening process and are some of the most vetted travelers in the world – checks that were continuously improved throughout the Biden administration. This action is also deeply destabilizing for individual refugees and refugee families who already survived violence and persecution – including the Afghan evacuation and the chaos of America’s withdrawal. USCIS’s implication that there’s a chance these individuals don’t meet the refugee definition is baseless, defamatory, and reckless. A summary of the USCIS memo is available here.
233,000 refugees who have been adjudicated, approved, and resettled in the United States after fleeing some of the world’s largest and most violent displacement crises, including:
- Over 50,000 refugees who fled M23 conflict in the DR Congo
- Over 24,000 refugees who fled rampant violence and worsening displacement in Venezuela
- Over 23,000 Afghan allies who fled retribution from the Taliban
- Over 18,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar
- Over 5,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion
Right now is a critical time to ensure the Trump administration hears a swift and powerful response that refugees are welcome in our communities. Urge your elected leaders to:
- Hold the administration accountable to rescind the memo and halt any actions that would terminate refugee status, remove protections, stop required processing, or retroactively review entire cohorts of resettled individuals.
- Demand full transparency if the administration follows through with this directive: provide all documents, analyses, screening protocols, and timelines behind this directive, and ensure that statutory consultation requirements were followed.
- Speak out publicly and do everything in their power to safeguard their refugee communities.
We want all Americans who came to this country seeking safety to know that we will not stop speaking out and hope to uplift your voices in any way we can.
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