The suspect accused of critically wounding two National Guard members on Wednesday was a man from Afghanistan living in Bellingham, Wash., the U.S. attorney in D.C. said on Thursday.
The suspect was identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29. Mr. Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 through a program known as Operation Allies Welcome that provided entry to Afghan nationals fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country, officials said.
The Biden-era program allowed 76,000 evacuated Afghans to enter the United States for humanitarian reasons after the U.S. military’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
Around the same time, the State Department approved Whatcom County — of which Bellingham is the county seat — as a resettlement location for World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization that helps refugees navigate their first 90 days in the United States.
What was expected to be a slow ramp up of helping refugees enter Whatcom County accelerated as Afghans began streaming into the United States after Kabul fell to the Taliban, Cascadia Daily News reported.
In Whatcom County, which has about 230,000 residents, 31 Afghan refugees arrived in the agency’s first eight weeks, the newspaper reported. In total, World Relief has helped about 380 refugees from Afghanistan and other countries settle in the area.
In the first year after the Taliban took over, Washington State welcomed at least 800 refugees in five locations, according to the Washington-based Immigrant and Refugee Health Alliance.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump announced a pause in refugee admissions. The number of refugees from Afghanistan fell dramatically compared to 2024.
And this fall, the Trump administration announced a cap of 7,500 refugees for the next year, the lowest in the history of the decades-old refugee program.
Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.
Soumya Karlamangla is a Times reporter who covers California. She is based in the Bay Area.
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