Processing pauses hit Iran, Venezuela

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has ordered officers to stop short of final decisions on many immigration benefit cases tied to “high-risk” countries, and Iran is explicitly on that list. The agency’s January 1, 2026 memo says the hold applies immediately to pending and future cases. (uscis.gov) The hold covers final adjudication, meaning a case can move through paperwork and interviews but not reach approval, denial, or dismissal. The memo applies to people whose country of birth or citizenship is listed in Presidential Proclamation 10998, and it says family-based immigrant visa cases are no longer broadly exempt. (uscis.gov) A December 2, 2025 USCIS memo had already imposed a similar hold for people tied to 19 countries named in Presidential Proclamation 10949 and separately paused all asylum applications on Form I-589, regardless of nationality. That memo specifically listed Form I-485 green card cases, Form I-751 petitions to remove conditions on residence, and Form I-131 travel document requests among the affected benefit types. (uscis.gov) Yale’s Office of International Students and Scholars said on January 8, 2026 that the expanded January memo reaches “all benefit applications” and identified Form I-129, Form I-140, Form I-539, and Form I-765 as examples. Yale said that can affect temporary work authorization, changes of status, H-1B filings, and employment-based green card cases for students and scholars. (yale.edu) United States Citizenship and Immigration Services publicly defended the policy on March 30, 2026 as part of “strengthened screening and vetting” ordered through executive actions and presidential proclamations. The agency said it had issued PM-602-0192 and PM-602-0194 under that effort, confirming the holds were still in force at the end of March. (uscis.gov) Iran also appears on the State Department’s list of 19 countries subject to a full visa-issuance suspension under Presidential Proclamation 10998, effective January 1, 2026, with limited exceptions. On a separate track, the State Department said immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries was paused effective January 21, 2026, and that list includes Iran but not Venezuela. (travel.state.gov 1) (travel.state.gov 2) Venezuela is harder to pin down in the official USCIS documents now public. The January 21, 2026 State Department immigrant-visa pause list does not name Venezuela, but the department’s visa-bond list does show Venezuela with a January 21, 2026 implementation date, and USCIS separately ended Venezuela’s 2023 Temporary Protected Status designation after the Supreme Court allowed termination to take immediate effect on October 3, 2025. (travel.state.gov 1) (travel.state.gov 2) (uscis.gov) That leaves two overlapping stories: an official, documented USCIS hold for Iranians and a broader climate of tightened immigration processing that Venezuelan applicants say is also reaching their cases. The public records released by USCIS so far establish the Iran hold clearly, but they do not, on their face, provide the same direct confirmation for Venezuela. (uscis.gov 1) (uscis.gov 2)