Federal officials have canceled a growing number of naturalization interviews and oath ceremonies in the Twin Cities in recent months, throwing the citizenship process in turmoil for many Minnesota green-card holders.
It’s a pattern that is playing out nationwide, with interview and oath ceremonies cancelled at the last minute in Boston, Indiana, Seattle, and Sacramento, among other locations. In some cases, applicants have been plucked out of line while waiting to take their citizenship oath.
Twin Cities immigration attorneys say the interview and ceremony cancellations began to pick up in September, with reports of a large number of cancellations in early January.
In an email to Sahan Journal, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) spokesman reiterated a policy memo issued earlier this month, saying the agency had paused all adjudications for immigrants from “high-risk” countries. Attorneys in the Twin Cities say nationals from other countries have been affected as well.
Local attorneys say green-card holders from Iran, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador and Ethiopia have been affected. Nationally, U.S. permanent residents from a host of countries, including Haiti, Sudan, Sierra Leoneand Afghanistan, have had oath ceremonies cancelled, The Guardian reported.
To become a naturalized citizen, eligible permanent residents must submit an application, complete an interview at a USCIS field office and pass a civics test, and finally, if their application is approved, take an oath of allegiance to the United States.
Straightforward process now ‘in chaos’
Immigration attorney Brian Aust represents a client from Ethiopia whose naturalization interview scheduled for January was cancelled. According to Aust, sweeping reports of cancelled naturalization interviews scheduled for January circulated among local immigration attorney listservs early last week.
“There’s no rhyme nor reason to it in terms of the cancellations,” Aust said. “It seems that this was sort of a wholesale cancellation of a large swath of previously scheduled interviews for the early part of January.”
State Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, who is also an immigration attorney, said the recent cancellations appear to be part of a monthslong trend.
“All the time I’ve worked in immigration law, [naturalization] has been a very straightforward timeline and process,” Feist said. “And then, this fall, it just feels like chaos.”
Carrie Peltier, an immigration attorney based in Roseville, said that since October, naturalization interviews for four of her clients from El Salvador and Venezuela have been canceled; two of the clients were in the waiting area of the USCIS field office when they were notified.
USCIS has not provided attorneys and naturalization candidates with any justification for cancellations other than “unforeseen circumstances.” In several instances, attorneys say interviews were cancelled the morning of, with notice only delivered once candidates arrived at USCIS offices.
USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said the cancellations are intended to allow for additional vetting of naturalization candidates.
“USCIS has paused all adjudications for aliens from high-risk countries while USCIS works to ensure that all aliens from these countries are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible,” Tragesser said. “The pause will allow for a comprehensive examination of all pending benefit requests for aliens from the designated high-risk countries.”
Some interruptions have targeted nationals from “high risk” countries with Trump-imposed partial or full travel bans issued in June 2025, though green-card holders from other countries have also been impacted.
This fall, two of Feist’s clients, married Iranian nationals, were told their interviews were cancelled the same day they were scheduled due to “technical issues.”
Several months later, on Dec. 2, USCIS paused residency and naturalization requests for nationals of the 19 countries listed in the June restrictions, including Iran. The memorandum also said all applications filed by individuals from these countries since 2021 would go through a re-review process.
Feist said the couple’s case was straightforward and the last-minute cancellation came as a shock to her clients.
“The wife is like ‘I realized I had a parking ticket, so I went and paid that, maybe that’s the issue,’” Feist said.
“It’s not anything to do with you. It’s these larger policies, impacting your case really unjustly, because you’ve done everything right. All you’ve done is build a job that an employer couldn’t find U.S. workers to do, and contributed to our economy and our state.”
Despite multiple inquiries, the interviews have not been rescheduled.
On Dec.16, the Trump administration extended the June travel restrictions to 20 additional countries, with nationals from 17 countries fully banned from entering the U.S.
Caught in the judicial process
Oath ceremonies, the last step in the naturalization process, have also been targeted in recent months. According to immigration attorneys who spoke with Sahan Journal, at least two oath ceremonies scheduled for Oct. 17 and Dec. 19 have been cancelled. In November, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid also reported clients with cancelled oath ceremonies.
Feist received a voicemail from USCIS notifying her of a cancellation the day before her client’s Dec. 19 oath ceremony. Her client, a Mexican national, had just submitted a new photo, in response to a request from USCIS earlier that week to update her photo to meet the latest U.S. immigration requirements. She could not recall another time a client’s scheduled oath ceremony was cancelled.
In an email to Sahan Journal, a representative for USCIS said the agency is phasing out onsite administrative naturalization ceremonies — ceremonies held at USCIS field offices — in favor of judicial naturalization ceremonies conducted by the U.S. District Court of Minnesota.
The email also said citizenship candidates will be rescheduled for the next available judicial naturalization ceremonies.
Feist said her client’s oath ceremony has yet to be rescheduled.
Rebeccah Parks, a spokeswoman for Minnesota’s U.S. District Court, said the courts were unaware of USCIS phasing out administrative ceremonies in favor of judicial ceremonies, but added that additional judicial ceremonies could be scheduled if necessary.
Increased cancellations of naturalization interviews could reduce the number of total ceremonies, however.
Clients with post-interview delays of more than 120 days — such as those with cancelled oath ceremonies — can petition a district court to intervene.
However, clients whose cases stalled prior to their interviews have fewer remedies.
“If there’s an [interview] cancellation without any rescheduling within a reasonable period of time, I would say that a court would be interested in or willing to entertain a writ of mandamus in federal court for the government failing to act in terms of rescheduling this within a timely manner,” Aust said.
A writ of mandamus is a court order requiring a government official to properly fulfill their duties, and is considered by the U.S. Department of Justice “an extraordinary remedy” to be used only in exceptional circumstances.
According to Feist and Aust, the likelihood of success is unknown, and the timeline of the mandamus would not be based on any specific legal or statutory mandate.
Unpredictability takes a ‘psychic toll’
Interruptions to the naturalization process are not reserved to Minnesota.
Local immigration attorney Anthony Sosa said on Dec. 23 he was informed his clients had naturalization interviews scheduled for January cancelled at USCIS offices in Seattle and Minneapolis. In Sacramento, similar interview cancellations have occurred, and earlier this month in Boston, 21 people were informed they would not be taking their oath ceremony the morning it was scheduled.
In addition, internal guidance issued by the Trump administration to USCIS field offices on Dec. 15 pushed for 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month, an aggressive approach to stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship.
For green-card holders in the process of becoming U.S. citizens, the cancellations are a difficult setback. Feist says their impact extends beyond the bureaucratic consequences.
“I think that the psychic toll can’t be overstated,” she said. “The uncertainty, in the sense that somehow this is personal, really has a huge impact on people’s lives.”
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