President Donald Trump’s administration is expanding its crackdown on immigration after the shooting from a couple of members of the National Guard in Washington.
The two National Guard members remained in critical condition Thursday after being shot in an ambush Wednesday near the White House. The suspect is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national, who was subdued and taken into custody shortly after.
Federal authorities have launched an extensive nationwide counterterrorism investigation into what Jeanine Pirro, a federal prosecutor in Washington, DC, called a “brazen and targeted” attack. Police searched the scene of the shooting, while authorities searched homes in Washington state and California.
Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other members of the administration quickly blamed the Biden administration for allowing Lakanwal into the United States and used the case to push for tougher immigration restrictions, including suspending reviews of Afghan immigration procedures and ordering those already in the United States to be reviewed. This raises the possibility of the settlement rights of the Afghan allies of US forces being limited.
“We must now re-examine every foreigner who has entered our country from Afghanistan under the Biden administration, and we must take all necessary steps to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or who does not bring benefits to our country,” Trump said in a videotaped speech released by the White House on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Joseph Edlow, director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, declared on social media that his agency, under orders from Trump, is conducting a thorough and rigorous review of every green card for every foreigner from every country of interest. A White House official pointed to a June proclamation that names 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and Sudan, facing immigration restrictions.
Even before Wednesday’s shooting, the Trump administration had already taken steps to sharply reduce legal migration to the United States. During his second term, Trump slashed the refugee limit, eliminated temporary protected status for migrants from numerous countries, imposed a $100,000 application fee for H-1B visas, widely used by technology companies and universities to bring in highly skilled workers, and revoked thousands of visas. It also plans to review the cases of all refugees resettled under the Biden administration, according to a Nov. 21 internal memo seen by Bloomberg News.
Calls for additional measures came quickly after Wednesday’s shooting, even as the investigation is in its early stages. Authorities are treating it as a case of terrorism, but have not publicly described their specific motive. On Thursday morning, they reported that interrogations and search warrants were still being carried out.
Lakanwal lived in Washington state with his wife and, according to authorities, their five children. They claim he drove to Washington, D.C. — a trip of nearly 3,000 miles across the country — with the intention of carrying out the attack. Then he took out a revolver and shot two members of the West Virginia National Guard, a few blocks from the White House. The two victims are Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24; both remained in critical condition Thursday.
Lakanwal was evacuated from Afghanistan in 2021, around the same time as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. AfghanEvac, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the resettlement of U.S. allies in Afghanistan, He claimed that he served in an elite Afghan counterterrorism unit operated by the CIA, with direct US military and intelligence support in the fight against the Taliban.
Lakanwal came to the United States in September of that year “due to his previous work with the US government, including the CIA, as a member of an associated force in Kandahar,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement.
Lakanwal arrived on humanitarian parole and was granted asylum by the Trump administration earlier this year.according to AfghanEvac.
But the administration’s response raises the possibility that it may try to block or even revoke the status of Afghan citizens. who helped American forces fight the Taliban.
The United States immediately suspended the processing of immigration applications related to Afghan citizens and is reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration, according to Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of Homeland Security.
Trump asked to check every person who arrived in the United States from Afghanistan under the Biden administration, while Vance said they will “redouble our efforts to deport people who have no right to be in our country.”
And several senior advisers said Lakanwal’s work with the CIA and other US agencies should not have meant that he was granted residency or status in the US.
Ratcliffe claimed that “this individual, and so many others, should never have had access to this country,” while Attorney General Pam Bondi called Lakanwal a “monster who should not have been in our country” during an interview with Fox News on Thursday. FBI Director Kash Patel stated at Thursday’s press conference that “all signs are missed when no background checks are performed,” and Jeanine Pirro, US Attorney for Washington, DC, stated, “This is what happens in this country when people who have not been properly vetted are allowed in.”
But while the Trump administration said it was a failure of the investigation, the Afghan settlement rights group said there is an investigation and that Lakanwal was a bad apple.
“Afghan immigrants and wartime allies resettling in the United States undergo some of the most extensive security screenings of any population entering the country.”AfghanEvac President Shawn VanDiver said in a written statement.
The group “fully supports that the perpetrator faces full responsibility” and “rejects any attempt to use this tragedy as a political ploy to isolate or harm Afghans who have resettled in the United States,” VanDiver added.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, said outrage over the crime should be directed at the perpetrator and not at all Afghan citizens who are in the United States or seeking to settle in the country. “Using this horrible attack as an excuse to defame and punish every Afghan, refugee or immigrant violates something fundamental to our Constitution and many religions: the idea that guilt is personal, not hereditary or collective,” the group declared in a written statement.
In addition to immigration reform, the political repercussions of the attack could widen. Bondi also indicated that the administration could investigate Democrats who criticized the deployments.
Speaking on Fox News Thursday morning, Bondi criticized Democratic lawmakers, without name none, and to media figures who have criticized Trump’s use of the National Guard.
“They should praise our men and women in law enforcement. And we are analyzing everything they have said, why they said it and whether they incited acts of violence”he said, without giving further details.
The government is already seeking to put Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., on military trial after the release of a video in which Democratic lawmakers told the U.S. military that they could refuse illegal orders. Trump called the video “sedictive” and reposted calls to assassinate lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser condemned the shooting and promised that the suspect would be prosecuted, but also hinted at concerns about the deployment. “These young people should be at home, in West Virginia, with their families”said. He did not give more details.
Pirro, for his part, refused to talk about the matter. “I don’t even want to talk about whether they should have been there,” he said. “We should thank God that the president said it was time to strengthen the police”.
