Trump intensifies immigration crackdown: Key actions taken & declarations made

United States President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown has intensified with a series of actions and declarations.

The latest wave of actions came shortly after a shooting incident in which an Afghan national shot two members of the National Guard in Washington DC.

Trump laid the blame at his predecessor, Joe Biden’s doorstep and rolled out a series of measures to advance his immigration crackdown and “make America safer”.

Taking to social media, Trump launched a tirade in which he defended his immigration crackdown.

Below is the latest in a week that has seen a flurry of activities.

At president Trump’s direction, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will re-examine green cards issued to nationals of 19 countries and determine their fate.

USCIS noted that this rigorous exercise will also take into account “negative, country specific factors” and those who don’t will fail to make it will have their status revoked, paving the way for reverse migration.

The director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Joe Edlow confirmed that the 19 countries are those categorised by the US as “of concern” in a presidential proclamation issued back in June 2025.

Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela are the countries listed in the proclamation.

“At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” Joe Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

As part of the crackdown on immigration, the U.S. has halted all asylum decisions until the USCIS can ensure maximum vetting and screening.

Trump escalated his crackdown with a declaration that he plans to suspend immigration from “all Third World countries”.

According to him, the move is necessary to allow the U.S. system to recover from the negative impacts of admissions by his predecessor.

“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.

Although Trump did not define the phrase “Third World countries”, it is a term used to refer to developing countries located in the global south.

The move signals enhanced immigration restrictions and even those already in the U.S. are not spared as he vowed to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country”.

Trump once again turned to his predecessor Joe Biden who he accused of getting the U.S. to its current state by allowing those around him to operate an “Autopen” that signed several Executive Orders.

Without breaking down the specific Executive orders that had been cancelled and those that had not, Trump announced the cancellation of “anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden”.

Asserting that U.S. citizens are bearing the heavy financial burden of supporting immigrants, Trump announced that public benefits to non-citizens will cease and naturalised migrants who don’t deserve to be in will be denalturalised.

He vowed to “end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.

Immigration crackdown has been a significant part of Trump’s second stint at the White House.