IRSA at UCF

There are weeks where IRSA Aid is mostly about Nowruz catering and book stipends. And then there are weeks like this one — where a half-dozen members come to chai hour holding the same opened email, all asking the same question: “My case is on hold. What does that actually mean?”

We’re not lawyers. We can’t give you legal advice, and you shouldn’t take any from us. But we can do what diaspora orgs are supposed to do: read the policy memos line by line, talk to the immigration attorneys who keep walking us through them, and translate the result into plain English — so the people the policy is actually about don’t have to sit in the dark.

This is the latest as of late May 2026. If you’re reading this six months from now, treat it as a snapshot, not gospel — and use the official USCIS website and a licensed immigration attorney as your primary sources.

What the pause actually is

On January 1, 2026, USCIS issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0194, placing an indefinite hold on the adjudication of pending immigration benefit applications from nationals of nineteen designated "high-risk" countries. Iran was on the list from day one. A subsequent memo, also dated January 1, expanded that list from nineteen to thirty-nine countries.

A "hold" is not a denial. USCIS is explicit that affected cases continue to move through processing — biometrics get collected, interviews can still be scheduled, fees are still cashed — but no final approval or denial is issued until further guidance is released. In practice, applicants sit in a queue with no estimated end date.

Which applications are affected

The memo names specific forms. The ones that hit our community hardest, by frequency:

Form I-485 — Adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident (the "green card" application).
Form I-140 — Immigrant petition for a foreign worker, the employment-based step that usually precedes I-485.
Form N-400 — Application for naturalization (citizenship).
Form I-589 — Application for asylum and withholding of removal.
Form I-765 — Application for employment authorization (EAD), including OPT and STEM OPT extensions for F-1 students.

For UCF students specifically, the OPT and STEM-OPT freezes are the ones causing the most acute panic. As Inside Higher Ed reported in April, the number of new OPT approvals issued to Iranian nationals this year could drop to zero. That means graduating seniors with job offers lined up cannot legally start work, and current OPT holders trying to extend cannot.

What it’s not

A pause is not a deportation order. The memo does not change anyone’s underlying status today. If you are in valid F-1 status with a Form I-20, you are still in valid F-1 status. If your I-94 is unexpired, you have until that date. What the pause does is freeze your ability to move to the next step — the step you may have been counting on to keep working, traveling, or staying long-term.

The congressional response

There is a bill on the table. In May 2026, Representatives Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) introduced the Iranian Temporary Immigration Relief Act. The proposed bill would grant Temporary Protected Status and work authorization to eligible Iranian nationals already in the U.S. who are at risk of losing legal status while USCIS adjudications remain paused.

It is, at the time of writing, a bill — not law. It has co-sponsors but no committee schedule. We mention it because our members keep asking, and because it is the first piece of congressional language directly aimed at this pause. Calling your representative to ask them to support it is one of the most concrete things you can do this week.

The pause is not a denial. But for the person sitting on a year-old I-485 with a job offer expiring in three weeks, the practical difference is academic. Their life is on hold.

What to do, this week

We’ve compiled the following from conversations with the immigration attorneys we partner with for IRSA Aid casework. None of it is a substitute for hiring counsel yourself. All of it is a starting point.

Document your timeline. Save every USCIS receipt notice, every status change, every interview confirmation, in one folder. If the pause lifts, the people who can prove they were waiting will move first.
Don’t let anything else lapse. If your underlying F-1 or H-1B is active, keep it active. Travel cautiously: the pause does not stop CBP officers from asking the same hard questions at the airport, and re-entry on a paused application is risky.
Talk to UCF Global before any travel. International Services have been adding office hours specifically for affected Iranian students. They cannot give you legal advice, but they can sanity-check your status and SEVIS record.
Get one consultation with an immigration attorney. Many local Florida firms are offering free first sessions for Iranian students right now. If you cannot afford one, IRSA Aid maintains a small fund that can cover one consultation per member. Just ask.
Write to Representative Castor. Florida’s 14th district representative covers UCF. A constituent letter on the Ansari-Suozzi bill is more effective than a tweet — Capitol staffers count letters.

A note to anyone reading this from inside Iran

Most of our readers are in Florida. Some are in California, Texas, New York. A small number open this site from inside Iran, when the network allows. To you, especially: we know that watching the U.S. close one door after another while your own country closes the others is exhausting in a way that’s hard to name. We are not going to pretend that any of this is okay. We are going to keep documenting it.

IRSA exists, in part, because there is a generation of students who are caught between two governments that have decided their lives are negotiable. The least we can do is keep the room honest about what is actually happening, in a language that doesn’t require a legal degree to read.

IRSA Aid maintains a small legal-consultation fund for affected Iranian students at UCF. To talk to someone, email [email protected] with the subject "USCIS pause — legal help."