DHS Lifts Pause on Adjudication of Immigration Benefits; Appeal Pending
Alerts
June 15, 2026
On December 2, 2025, December 19, 2025, and January 1, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released separate memoranda announcing the pause of adjudication of immigration benefits for individuals who were born in, or are a citizen of, one of the 39 countries that the President designated as “high risk” in two earlier Presidential Proclamations. The countries are as follows: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote d ‘Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The memoranda also announced a total pause of adjudication of all Forms I-589 (Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal) regardless of the applicant’s country of nationality, as well as a hold on all pending adjustment of status, ancillary benefits, and associated waiver applications, for those applying to adjust to lawful permanent resident status under the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program.
Following a June 5, 2026 decision and June 11, 2026 order by the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the holds announced in these memoranda been vacated.
The government has appealed this decision, though it has confirmed that it is not treating the holds as effective for now, pending appeal. Accordingly, USCIS should be adjudicating all new and pending benefit requests that it has placed on hold as a result of these memoranda, without regard to nationality of the applicant or beneficiary. Note, however, that USCIS has not announced any specific procedure or timeline for adjudicating pending benefit requests that had been placed on hold.
We will continue to monitor developments and report on any changes that may occur as a result of the appeal.