On December 2nd of 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a memorandum.

The subject? A hold and review of all pending asylum applications and all USCIS benefit applications

filed by aliens from high-risk countries.

There's a temporary halt for people coming in from countries like Afghanistan, and in a cable obtained by the New York Times, the State Department has issued orders to the embassy.

Asylum decisions are being halted. This means any asylum seekers attempting to flee persecution in their country. They'll now not be granted access into the U.S.

He's also promising to expel millions of immigrants already here revoking their legal

staff.

Wednesday's attack by an alleged Afghan national, President Trump is calling for a stricter

crackdown on U.S. immigration.

These are people that do nothing but complain.

They complain.

And from where they came from, they got nothing.

This is Civic and from where they came from, they got nothing.

This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy. I'm Nicappitya. And today, per usual, I am trying to figure out what is going on. So we're going to be talking about the history and evolution of

United States refugee and asylum policy. We have been a

country of exclusion for about as long as we have projected the image of a democratic refuge.

We'll talk about what it actually takes to secure refugee or asylum status in the U.S.

and how that gargantuan task has been made so much more difficult, if not impossible for some, under the second Trump administration.

Stay tuned.

Stay tuned. Today on Civics 101, we are covering refugee and asylum policy in the United States,

namely what those terms mean, what it takes to achieve that status, and how far out of reach this has all become in the past year.

And to get there per usual, I spoke with someone who knows a lot more than I do.

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