A day before his citizenship ceremony was supposed to take place, 74-year-old Avelino Gonzalez laid out his jacket and tie. Then, he got a call from his lawyer. The ceremony had been canceled.
“It was as if I had been splashed with a bucket of cold water,” Gonzalez said in Spanish. “No explanation. The only thing the lawyer told me was that the process was on hold and that I had to wait.”
Months later, he is still waiting to learn when, or if, it will be rescheduled. At least 25 naturalization ceremonies have been canceled in the Pacific Northwest since December, according to reports from immigration attorneys and various media outlets.
To apply for citizenship, applicants must have had their permanent residency card — or more commonly called a “green card”— for five years, or three if they are married to a U.S. citizen. They must also complete a civics test, a background check and an interview. Taking the oath of allegiance at a citizenship ceremony is the final step in becoming a U.S. citizen.
Extra scrutiny on immigrants from Cuba, and dozens of other countries
Gonzalez has called the United States his home for almost 30 years, much of that time in the Yakima Valley. He came to the U.S. from Cuba in 1996, during the Clinton administration. He was one of thousands of Cubans who left the island between 1994 and 1996. He fled on a makeshift raft to cross the Florida Strait.
“I had always wanted to come here to see my father and sister, who were already here,” he said. “Then I had the opportunity to join the rafters.”
He spent 24 hours in the water before being rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard and taken to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp on the U.S. Navy Base in Cuba. He was there for more than a year before being flown to a base in Florida, and then on to Washington state, where he had family.
Despite having lived in the United States for many years, Gonzalez had never thought about becoming a citizen. He devoted himself to working and was too busy. Finally, he decided to apply for naturalization in April of 2025.
He passed his interview and civics test. The last step was the ceremony.
Eilish Villa Malone, Gonzalez’s lawyer and the bilingual director of immigration legal services at Central Washington Legal Aid, said that at the time of cancellation, there was no explanation from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. She found out by checking Gonzalez’s case on the agency’s website.
“Really all you can do is wait. There’s no kind of appeal process right now because the ceremony’s just been canceled,” said Villa Malone. “It’s kind of in limbo.”
While USCIS did not give a reason for the cancellation, Villa Malone believes that his Cuban nationality played a role. The Trump administration issued a policy memorandum on Dec. 2directing USCIS offices to re-review immigration procedures for applicants from countries listed on the administration’s travel ban. Cuba is included on that list.
USCIS said both in that memorandum and in response to a request for comment that it is vetting immigrants from countries it considers to be high-risk for public safety more thoroughly than the Biden administration.
Other nationalities affected across the Pacific Northwest
While Gonzalez’s nationality gives some indication as to why USCIS canceled his ceremony, others have no idea.
Sofia Acosta, the citizenship legal services manager at La Casa Hogar, said that her organization has seen 18 ceremonies canceled this year. The nonprofit supports citizenship application processes in the Yakima Valley of Central Washington.
The ceremonies were all for individuals of Mexican nationality, though Mexico is not on the travel ban list or on any immigration pause list released by the federal government. Acosta said she has never seen this many ceremonies canceled at once before.
“Maybe … one or two, either because of the weather…or maybe some other factor, but never this many. This is definitely unprecedented,” she said.
Acosta said she was told by USCIS that all of these cases are still on the waitlist for their ceremony appointments, and that it seems to be an internal issue. Of the 18 ceremonies canceled, she said four have been rescheduled.
In Seattle, dozens have had their citizenship interviews or ceremonies canceled, according to The Seattle Times. While some were from countries included on the Trump administration’s travel ban list, many were not.
In February, a naturalization ceremony scheduled at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland was canceled just one week before the event. Rachel Randles, the society’s chief marketing and communications officer, said that she doesn’t have any information about the reason for the cancellation.
The BBC reported in December that an Oregonian from Iran also had their citizenship ceremony canceled.
Canceled naturalization ceremonies are difficult to track, as each organization supporting citizenship cases maintains its own registry. USCIS declined to provide the number of canceled ceremonies from each of its field offices in Oregon and Washington.
USCIS responds to cancellations
When asked why so many citizenship ceremonies have been canceled, USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser said the Biden administration had been “rubberstamping” naturalization applications for years.
Tragesser said the current administration is providing more thorough vetting of candidates and is also setting a higher bar for English language skills, adding more questions on the civics test, and screening social media accounts.
It is unclear whether those waiting for their naturalization ceremonies to be rescheduled will be required to go through additional screening requirements or to redo their interviews.
Meanwhile, Gonzalez said he will keep waiting for his new naturalization ceremony date, hoping that everything will be resolved.
“It’s quite unfair,” he said in Spanish. “I can’t wrap my head around it. But we have to adapt to the system and follow the orders we’re given.”
Johanna Bejarano is a reporter with the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.