An immigrant from the Congo walked into the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in downtown Louisville Thursday ready to become a citizen.
The man, who said he’s been here since 2019, arrived an hour early to his scheduled citizenship ceremony wearing an American flag polo shirt. It was the final step in his naturalization process. But when he walked up to a staffer and showed him his invitation letter, he was told his ceremony was cancelled. The man was confused because other people were let into the waiting room while he stood there.
An LPM News reporter witnessed this incident as well as two other men being turned away from their ceremonies Thursday morning. One man said he came to the U.S. six years ago as a refugee from Burma.
Another man from the Congo, who was accompanied by a family member, had a similar story.
“They just told us that the ceremony was cancelled, that they sent a paper in the mail, but we haven’t seen it yet,” he said. “So, they just told us to go home and wait.”
None of the people turned away were willing to give their names, saying they were confused and shocked by being unexpectedly turned away. One man teared up when he learned from an LPM reporter that not everyone was being turned away, just him and a few others.
The USCIS office on the second floor of Fourth Street Live! hosted multiple naturalization ceremonies starting around 9 a.m.
Dan DeSpain, a member of the local advocacy group Showing Up For Racial Justice, said he went to observe and offer support. He told LPM he saw about 15 citizens-to-be in Louisville who were rejected at the door.
“On a day that should have been the biggest day of their life, for several people it wasn’t,” DeSpain said. “They weren’t told anything, they were just turned away.”
DeSpain said he spoke with a couple from Rwanda who were both expecting to become naturalized citizens. Instead, they were turned away.
Another couple from Cuba were also told to go home, he said.
“They said that they were told that, as of now, Cubans and Venezuelans … they were now not welcome until further notice,” he said. “They do all the stuff they’re supposed to and then, yeah, it’s just infuriating.”
Amber Duke, executive director of ACLU in Kentucky, said she learned earlier this week about denials like these taking place in Louisville.
"For lawful permanent residents who have committed so fully to their loyalty to the United States that they want to become U.S. citizens to be treated this way is heartbreaking and is having a [devastating] impact on them and their families," she said in an email. "It is also a reminder that while Louisville has not seen dramatic enforcement raids as other cities have, federal immigration policies are having deep, life-changing impacts daily here and across the commonwealth."
All of the people LPM witnessed being turned away from their ceremonies were from some of the 19 countries President Donald Trump’s administration has deemed “high-risk.” That classification came directly from Trump, who wrote in a June 4 proclamation that the federal government would begin restricting the entry of people from certain countries.
After an Afghan national shot two National Guardsmen in D.C. last month, the USCIS said it would implement “additional national security measures” based on that list. The Trump administration announced on Dec. 2 that it was pausing all immigration applications and U.S. citizenship processing for people from those countries, according to Reuters.
Since then, dozens of people across the U.S. have shown up to appointments ready to take the oath of allegiance, only to be sent back home with few answers. Mirror Indy reported on Wednesday that 38 out of 100 people in Indianapolis were denied a ceremony, despite completing the naturalization process.
It is unclear how many people in total were turned away in Louisville Thursday, but dozens of others obtained their citizenship and walked out with little American flags in hand.
In response to questions about the denials, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed in an email that USCIS has paused processing immigrants from "high-risk" countries, saying it was to ensure they are "vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible."
The full list of high-risk countries, according to the Trump administration, is:
- Afghanistan
- Burma
- Chad
- Republic of the Congo
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Haiti
- Iran
- Libya
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Yemen
- Burundi
- Cuba
- Laos
- Sierra Leone
- Togo
- Turkmenistan
- Venezuela
Trump has said the additional vetting and pause on U.S. citizenship processing is meant to protect the U.S. from terrorists and other national security and public safety threats.
In recent weeks, the president has stepped up racist attacks on immigrants, calling people from Somalia “garbage” and denigrating immigrants coming to the U.S. from what he says are “shithole countries.”
This story was updated to include comment from USCIS.
