Trump orders pause on fundamental American tradition of welcoming the persecuted

President Donald Trump’s order to pause all asylum applications will hit Long Island especially hard because the region has among the largest number of applicants nationwide, immigration attorneys told Newsday yesterday, calling the move an attack on a fundamental American tradition of welcoming the persecuted. Bart Jones reports in NEWSDAY that Trump ordered the pause after the shooting of two National Guard troops — including one who died — on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., allegedly by an Afghan national who received asylum in April. The president also said he would permanently pause immigration from certain countries.

"I’m tremendously disturbed by what’s going on," Patrick Young, an immigration law professor at Hofstra Law School, said of President Trump’s asylum order.

While acknowledging the shooting of the National Guard troops was "horrible," Young said there are "hundreds of thousands of people in the New York area who have asylum who've not engaged in this type of abuse, have not engaged in murder or assassination. To simply tie all of them together and to prevent them from pursuing their rights under both U.S. law and also international law is very, very concerning."

Trump made the asylum announcement on Thursday, a day after the shootings.

All immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applications from Afghanistan also were put on hold by the administration.

Lauris Wren, head of the Asylum Clinic at Hofstra Law School, said Trump’s pause is "heart-wrenching" for her clients, who were already facing delays in their cases of as many as eight years.

"The vast majority of asylum seekers are law-abiding people desperately trying to find safety," Wren said. "It’s not right for the actions of one man to stop the entire asylum process."

Long Island is among the top 10 areas in the country for asylum applicants, Young and Wren said. The highest numbers come from El Salvador and Honduras, but there are others from Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela in Latin America alone, Wren said. Her clinic also has clients from Angola, Bangladesh, Eritrea, Mali and other countries.

While there are no hard numbers, there are probably tens of thousands of current asylum applicants on Long Island, according to Wren and Ala Amoachi, an immigration attorney based in East Islip. Many migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization apply for asylum, Amoachi said.

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The December 2024 indictment of Southampton contractor Robert Terry and his Riverhead-based company, Terry Contracting & Materials on prevailing wage law violations and related charges has been dismissed in its entirety by Suffolk County Supervising Judge Richard Ambro. Denise Civiletti reports on RIVERHEADLOCAL.com that Terry and his company were indicted for Willful Failure to Pay the Prevailing Wage Rate, and other related charges, for allegedly misclassifying his employees’ work categories on certified payrolls, shorting workers more than $83,000, on a public works contract for the Davis Park Marina Improvement project in the Town of Brookhaven. Ambro ruled in a decision signed Oct. 16.

Terry’s attorney. Michael Cornacchia, said it is significant that Judge Ambro found there was a lack of evidence to prove that Bob Terry, or his company committed any crimes or had any intent to do so. “My family and I always believed in our system of justice, and our belief was borne out by Judge Ambro’s decision,” Terry said in a statement released last week. “We are thankful that the truth has finally come out that my company and I did not commit any crimes and are innocent of the now dismissed charges. We are grateful to our many clients, employees and friends who stood by us during this challenging period. We look forward to continuing to serve our community as a reliable and principled employer,” he said.

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The East Hampton...