The Trump administration is prioritizing the deportation of Afghan nationals who were previously ordered to leave the United States, part of a broader crackdown on refugees from Afghanistan after last week’s shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, according to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.
“It has become vital to review the population of Afghanistan citizens,” an official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote to agency field offices in a Nov. 29 email.
The email said ICE agents had been tasked with “locating and apprehending” more than 1,860 Afghans across the country who had been given final deportation orders by an immigration judge but who were not currently in detention. Those instructions rippled out into ICE field offices this week, and federal agents were told to focus on tracking down and arresting Afghan nationals, according to two people familiar with the directive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
In addition, officials at ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have been working to ensure that Afghans admitted into the United States were “properly vetted,” the documents stated.
The move is part of President Trump’s response to a shooting last week that killed one National Guard member and left another in critical condition. The man accused of the shooting is an Afghan refugee named Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, who served in a C.I.A.-backed paramilitary unit in Afghanistan.
Mr. Lakanwal, who is said to have suffered from mental health issues after his combat experience, was one of the more than 190,000 Afghans resettled in the United States since 2021 through programs created by the Biden administration to assist U.S. allies fleeing the Taliban takeover.
Since the shooting, Mr. Trump has intensified his aggressive anti-migrant stance and accused his predecessor of failing to adequately screen those who arrived in the country through the programs.
Mr. Lakanwal came to the United States in September 2021 through a program called Operation Allies Welcome. He was granted asylum in April, during the Trump administration.
Biden administration officials have said that the Afghan nationals who arrived through Operation Allies Welcome were properly vetted and screened. Republicans have pointed to an inspector general report that later found significant flaws in the process.
In recent days, the Trump administration has halted all asylum requests and stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan; begun a review of all asylum cases that were approved under the Biden administration; and said it would re-examine green cards issued to people from 19 countries.
Together, the decisions could radically reshape American immigration policy, curtailing the ability of migrants to legally enter and live in the United States.
Spokespeople for the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new enforcement actions focused on Afghans.
Afghans are not the only ethnic group being specifically targeted by the Trump administration for immigration enforcement. ICE is also starting an operation primarily targeting hundreds of undocumented Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region.
But the administration is particularly focused on refugees from Afghanistan. Agency field offices have been instructed to submit daily reports outlining how many Afghans are being removed, arrested and investigated, the documents obtained by The Times show.
In the past, ICE has taken a “more individualized approach based on national security risk,” rather than broadly targeting members of ethnic groups without specific intelligence, according to Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former ICE official who served in Democratic and Republican administrations.
D.H.S. officials have maintained that they do not target people based on ethnicity.
Shawn VanDiver, the president of #AfghanEvac, a coalition of groups helping Afghans immigrate, said the current efforts amounted to “collective punishment” and were a “colossal waste of resources.”
“This is not an appropriate response to this heinous crime,” Mr. VanDiver said.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
The post Immigration Officials Target Afghans for Deportation in Wake of D.C. Shooting appeared first on New York Times.
