The United States has paused all asylum decisions and stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan in response to the killing of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., this week.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director (USCIS) Joseph Edlow said late Friday that asylum decisions were being halted “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
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The move comes as part of a sweeping crackdown on legal immigration by the Trump Administration in response to the shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members posted to Washington, D.C., allegedly by an Afghan national, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and resettled in the U.S. in 2021.
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Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died after the Wednesday shooting, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is currently in critical condition. They were posted in the city as part of what President Donald Trump has said is an effort to curb crime there.
The State Department said it had “IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports,” in a post on X Friday evening.
Shawn VanDiver, president of nonprofit AfghanEvac, which works with Afghans who were allied with the U.S. during the war against the Taliban, said in a statement on Friday that the Trump Administration was punishing an entire community for the crimes of one person.
“They are using a single violent individual as cover for a policy they have long planned, turning their own intelligence failures into an excuse to punish an entire community and the veterans who served alongside them,” he said
“This is not a policy dispute. It is a deliberate abandonment of our wartime allies and a breach of America’s word,” he added.
Those announcements followed a flurry of statements from across the Administration detailing new restrictions on immigration from a host of countries.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social Thursday that he would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” and “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” without providing further details on which countries he was referring to.
The President also said he would “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country,” and added that “[o]nly REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.”
Also on Thursday, Edlow, the head of USCIS, said the U.S. would reexamine all Green Cards issued to residents of 19 “countries of concern,” at the direction of President Trump.
“The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies. American safety is non negotiable,” Edlow said in a post on X.
A former CIA partner
Lakanwal is believed to have acted alone in Wednesday’s shooting. He is accused of ambushing the two National Guard members outside the Farragut West Metro station, firing with a .357 revolver before being wounded in an exchange of fire with other National Guardsmen.
Before coming to the U.S., Lakanwal had worked with a U.S. military partner force to fight the Taliban, according to CIA Director John Radcliffee, particularly the CIA-backed Afghan Army unit known as one of the special Zero Units. These clandestine units with the CIA have been accused of “extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances,” abuses of human rights, and violations of humanitarian law by Human Rights Watch, accusations that the U.S. government has chalked up to Taliban propaganda.
Lakanwal was granted asylum by the Trump Administration in April. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday night, however, that Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. in September 2021 as part of a Biden-era program called Operation Allies Welcome, a program launched to help Afghans who aided the U.S. war effort and their families after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. The program allowed nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals to resettle in the U.S. for up to two years without permanent resident status.
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FBI Director Kash Patel claimed in a news conference that the Biden-era program had “absolutely zero vetting,” but this is inaccurate. An audit of the FBI, conducted by the department’s Inspector General in June 2025, shows no systemic breakdown in the multi-layered screening process required for Afghan refugees, which involves multiple federal agencies.
Noem and Patel have also suggested in recent congressional testimony that the 8,000 Afghan nationals admitted via asylum since Trump took office were heavily vetted.
Lakanwal was born in the Afghan province of Khost. and was now living in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and five children. His family members told authorities he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stemming from his fighting in his home country.
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro had said Wednesday night, before Beckstrom’s death was confirmed, that Lakanwal would be hit with three counts of assault with the intent to kill and a charge of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. With Beckstrom’s death, however, he will be charged with first-degree murder, Pirro says.
The post Trump Pauses All Asylum Claim Decisions in Sweeping Immigration Crackdown After D.C. Shooting. Here’s What We Know appeared first on TIME.
