Hundreds of asylum, refugee or other immigration applications from people in the St. Louis area have been paused by the federal government and are now subject to re-review.
This month, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo stating that it was halting asylum decisions and indefinitely pausing immigration applications for people coming from 19 countries that it deemed high-risk.
Those countries include Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Venezuela, Cuba, Burundi, Laos, Togo, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Sierra Leone.
Immigration service providers and resettlement agencies said this could affect hundreds in the St. Louis area, and they are warning people to keep their immigration documents safe and organized.
“USCIS is going to take a full review of all of the applications that are coming into them through these 19 countries,” said Paul Costigan, the refugee coordinator for the Missouri Office of Refugee Administration. “They're going to look at whether anyone that submitted an application is on a terrorism screening database that have connections to organizations or activities that raise national security concerns, have a criminal history or pose public safety risks, and then can properly establish their identity.”
Costigan said that his office is unsure of how long the federal government will take to review applications. However, the state’s refugee office recommends people continue with any immigration applications.
“If they are parolees and are applying for re-parole, for example, to go ahead and reapply. If their employment authorization documents are due to be renewed, go through that process and renew your employment authorization document,” he said. “It's really important that they continue with the processes that they were already in, because there will be big delays in just the entire process in general.”
Over the past year, the International Institute of St. Louis has filed about 300 asylum applications. Of those applications, about 60% are from Hispanic or Spanish-speaking countries, including Venezuela. The remainder are from places including Haiti and Afghanistan. All of these applications have been paused by the federal government.
They have also filed hundreds of green card applications over the past year, primarily on behalf of refugees or approved asylees. These applications are also on hold and under review.
The institute also submitted 122 Employment Authorization cards for refugees and asylees who are from the 19 countries.
Costigan said this creates uncertainty for families and employers.
“We're just hoping that the policies that the federal government is instituting can be rethought in terms of how it's affecting local people in the community,” he said. “The people that are being affected — as well as local businesses, local governments — these are big changes, and they're being instituted very quickly and all at once.”
The state’s refugee office suspects the number of countries on the list could grow to about 30 in the coming weeks.
