The United States has frozen all asylum decisions after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House, killing one and critically injuring the other. President Donald Trump used the attack to harden his anti-migrant stance, vowing to “permanently pause” immigration from what he calls “third world countries” and to roll back millions of admissions approved under former President Joe Biden.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow said his agency had “suspended all asylum rulings” until officials can guarantee that every foreign national is vetted and screened to the “fullest extent possible.” The State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also announced a pause on issuing visas to anyone travelling on Afghan passports, citing national security concerns.
Authorities have identified the shooting suspect as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan who once served in a CIA-backed “partner force” fighting the Taliban. He was resettled in the US after the 2021 troop withdrawal, later granted asylum under Trump in April 2025, and is accused of travelling from Washington state to the capital before opening fire on the guardsmen.
One of the soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom of the West Virginia National Guard, died from her injuries, while a second guardsman remains in critical condition. Washington’s attorney general Jeanine Pirro said Lakanwal will face murder charges, and US Attorney General Pam Bondi has pledged to seek the death penalty, calling him a “monster.”
The incident has converged three highly sensitive issues: Trump’s deployment of troops on US streets, immigration policy and the legacy of the long Afghanistan war. Trump has argued that Lakanwal entered the US due to lax asylum vetting after Biden’s “chaotic” Afghanistan withdrawal, but AfghanEvac and other advocacy groups counter that Afghan evacuees underwent some of the toughest screening of any migrant group.
Alongside the asylum freeze, immigration authorities will re-examine the green cards of more than 1.6 million permanent residents from 19 “countries of concern” that already face US travel restrictions. Those nations include Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar, among others targeted in a June proclamation tightening entry rules. Critics warn the crackdown uses a single violent attack as a pretext to advance long-planned restrictions that could reshape US migration policy.
The United States has frozen all asylum decisions after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House, killing one and critically injuring the other. President Donald Trump used the attack to harden his anti-migrant stance, vowing to “permanently pause” immigration from what he calls “third world countries” and to roll back millions of admissions approved under former President Joe Biden.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow said his agency had “suspended all asylum rulings” until officials can guarantee that every foreign national is vetted and screened to the “fullest extent possible.” The State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also announced a pause on issuing visas to anyone travelling on Afghan passports, citing national security concerns.
Authorities have identified the shooting suspect as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan who once served in a CIA-backed “partner force” fighting the Taliban. He was resettled in the US after the 2021 troop withdrawal, later granted asylum under Trump in April 2025, and is accused of travelling from Washington state to the capital before opening fire on the guardsmen.
One of the soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom of the West Virginia National Guard, died from her injuries, while a second guardsman remains in critical condition. Washington’s attorney general Jeanine Pirro said Lakanwal will face murder charges, and US Attorney General Pam Bondi has pledged to seek the death penalty, calling him a “monster.”
The incident has converged three highly sensitive issues: Trump’s deployment of troops on US streets, immigration policy and the legacy of the long Afghanistan war. Trump has argued that Lakanwal entered the US due to lax asylum vetting after Biden’s “chaotic” Afghanistan withdrawal, but AfghanEvac and other advocacy groups counter that Afghan evacuees underwent some of the toughest screening of any migrant group.
Alongside the asylum freeze, immigration authorities will re-examine the green cards of more than 1.6 million permanent residents from 19 “countries of concern” that already face US travel restrictions. Those nations include Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar, among others targeted in a June proclamation tightening entry rules. Critics warn the crackdown uses a single violent attack as a pretext to advance long-planned restrictions that could reshape US migration policy.
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