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The Trump administration suspended all asylum decisions and suspended visas for people traveling on Afghan passports after two National Guardsmen were shot near the White House, leaving one dead.
Investigators are still working to determine the motive. The suspect is Rahmanullah Rakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war, and is currently facing charges including first-degree murder. He applied for asylum under the Biden administration and was granted asylum this year, according to an Afghan aid group that supports U.S. troops.
The Trump administration used the shooting to promise stricter controls on legal immigration, suspending immigration from some poor countries and saying it would screen Afghans and other immigrants already in the United States.
Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died after Wednesday’s shooting. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in hospital in serious condition. They were deployed with the West Virginia National Guard as part of President Trump’s crime-fighting mission in the city.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said the indictment against Rahmanullah Rakanwal includes two counts of assault while armed with intent to murder, and Pirro said “many more charges are planned.”
Trump cancels asylum decision
President Trump criticized the Biden administration for allowing Afghans working with the U.S. military into the country, calling the shooting a “terrorist attack.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said asylum decisions would be suspended “until we can ensure that all aliens are vetted and tested to the fullest extent possible.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his department had suspended “visa issuance to all individuals traveling on Afghan passports.”
“They are using one violent person as cover for a long-planned policy, and using their own intelligence failures as an excuse to punish entire communities and the veterans who worked with them,” said Sean Vandiver, president of the San Diego organization #AfghanEvac.
Officials said Lakhanwar entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Welcoming Allies, the Biden administration’s program to resettle Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal. #AfghanEvac said in a statement that he applied for asylum under the Biden administration but was approved this year under the Trump administration.
Rakanwar served in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit known as the Special Zero Unit in Kandahar province, said a relative in Khost province who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.