LAUREN FRAYER, HOST:
After two National Guard members were shot on Wednesday - one of them fatally - President Trump vowed a number of changes to U.S. immigration policy. That's because the alleged shooter is an immigrant from Afghanistan who came to the U.S. in 2021 under humanitarian parole. That's a temporary authority used for Afghans on special visas. His asylum status, though, was granted under the Trump administration earlier this year. Mariam Masumi is a Virginia-based immigration attorney, and she joins us now. Thanks for being here.
MARIAM MASUMI: Thank you so much for having me.
FRAYER: So in a post on Truth Social, President Trump said he'd, quote, "terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions." Let's focus on the 200,000 or so Afghans vetted and resettled in the U.S. who helped America's war effort. Could they now be deported?
MASUMI: Yes. At this point, the National Guard shooting is really being used to advance an immigration plan against Afghans. And this is something that has really happened since prior to the shooting. The administration has taken very aggressive actions against Afghans, including terminating temporary protected status for Afghans, as well as stating that they no longer are going to be renewing humanitarian parole.
So now you have Afghans in a situation where they could be facing removal. And in addition, all Afghan immigration requests are now paused by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. So you have Afghans inside of the United States who can't move forward with immigration benefits requests. And given that, if they're in a situation where they are in legal limbo, that certainly does allow ICE to take enforcement against them to go forward with removal.
FRAYER: President Trump said he'd also like to denaturalize or remove the citizenship of those he says, quote, "undermine domestic tranquility." Is that a legal basis for denaturalization of Americans?
MASUMI: It is not. Denaturalization is extremely limited. It only applies where someone obtains citizenship through fraud or by concealing a material fact. But there is a real concern based on the pattern we've seen that the administration may attempt to stretch denaturalization beyond what the Constitution allows.
For example, the naturalization application has a question on there about whether an applicant supports the Constitution and form of government in the United States. And my concern as an attorney is that this administration could try to weaponize that question on the application by taking constitutionally protected speech or political opinions expressed after naturalization and retroactively argue that a person did not truly support the Constitution and therefore must have concealed a material fact during the process.
Now obviously, that would violate the First Amendment, full stop. People are allowed to criticize the government. They're allowed to protest. They're allowed to hold political views. But this administration has already shown a willingness to test legally unsupported theories to see what might stick, and we saw that in an attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship. So at this point, when you look at this broader pattern of terminating TPS for long-settled communities in the United States or reexamining green card holders, it just becomes clear at this point that none of this is about public safety. It's really about arguing here that immigrants are just not welcome in the United States.
FRAYER: And the president actually widened the scope to include any foreign national who is deemed a security risk or who is considered, quote, "noncompatible with Western civilization." How much space does the president have to set these kind of immigration restrictions?
MASUMI: Well, there is a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act called 212(f), and that does give the president broad power to exclude certain classes of people from the United States. However, the courts have held that that power is not limitless, and the president also cannot use that section of the INA in order to contradict or prevent other provisions of the INA going forward as well as other federal statutes. So although there are some broad powers here that the president has, some of these proposals are absolutely something that we would expect litigation on, and it is likely that courts would not agree with him.
FRAYER: That's immigration attorney Mariam Masumi. Thanks so much for speaking with us today.
MASUMI: Thank you again for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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