WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump has accelerated his drive to curb legal immigration, after a native of Afghanistan who had been granted asylum was accused in a shooting in the nation’s capital that left one member of the West Virginia National Guard dead and another in critical condition.
“In the wake of last week’s atrocity, it is more important than ever to finish carrying out the president’s mass deportation operation,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during Monday’s press briefing. “They must go back to their home countries.”
The Trump administration at the beginning of the president’s second term launched an unprecedented crackdown on all forms of immigration. The deadly shooting on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, in a commercial area of the District of Columbia just blocks from the White House, has intensified the push.
The Department of Homeland Security in a social media post after the Wednesday attack called for immigrants to “remigrate,” which is a far-right concept in Europe that calls for the ethnic removal of non-white minority populations through mass migration.
“There is more work to be done,” Leavitt said, “because President Trump believes that he has a sacred obligation to reverse the calamity of mass unchecked migration into our country.”
The suspect in the guard shooting is a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the country during the Biden administration through a special immigrant visa program for Afghan allies after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021.
Authorities identified him as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who worked for a CIA counterterrorism operation in Afghanistan, according to the New York Times. He was granted asylum under the Trump administration earlier this year.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia plans to charge Lakanwal with first-degree murder after one of the National Guard soldiers, U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died as a result of her injuries.
Still hospitalized is U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Trump has indicated he intends to honor both Beckstrom and Wolfe at the White House.
District officials said the shooting of guard members was “targeted,” but the motive remains under investigation.
Pauses on asylum
Leavitt said the Trump administration will continue “to limit migration, both illegal and legal,” after the shooting.
Separately on Wednesday, the administration ended Temporary Protected Status for more than 330,000 nationals from Haiti, opening them up for deportations by February.
Within hours of Wednesday’s shooting, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services halted all immigration requests from Afghanistan nationals. On Thursday, USCIS head Joseph Edlow announced that by direction of Trump the agency would reexamine every green card application from “every country of concern,” which are the 19 countries on the president’s travel ban list.
And by Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed all U.S. embassies to suspend all visa approvals for individuals with passports from Afghanistan.
Over the weekend, Trump told reporters that those pauses on asylum could last “a long time,” although it’s unclear what authority the executive branch has to suspend a law created by Congress through the 1980 Refugee Act.
This is not the first time Trump has tried to end asylum this year, as there is a legal challenge to the president barring asylum seekers from making asylum claims at U.S. ports of entry.
Venezuelan boat strikes
During Monday’s press conference, Leavitt also defended the Trump administration’s continued deadly strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela allegedly containing drugs. The attacks have been occurring since September.
The president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have stated, without evidence, that the boats’ operators are narco-terrorists and that the strikes are legal, since they have taken place in international waters. Roughly 80 people have been killed in nearly two dozen attacks since September.
Leavitt disputed any questions of wrongdoing by the administration during a Sept. 2 strike, when two survivors clinging to boat wreckage were allegedly killed by a follow-on strike, as first reported by The Washington Post Friday.
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war,” Leavitt said, adding that Hegseth authorized a military commander to conduct the operation.
However, the attacks have raised concern among members of Congress, and following the Post story, the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services committees moved to open bipartisan inquiries into the military strikes, with a focus on the alleged follow-on attack that killed two survivors.
How the National Guard wound up in the district
Trump initially mobilized 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital in August after claiming a “crime emergency” in the district, despite a documented three-decade low in crime.
Many were instructed they would be carrying service weapons, The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 17. The White House effort was accompanied by a heightened U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in the district.
The mobilization then became tied up in court for months.
A federal district judge in the District of Columbia found the administration’s deployment of more than 2,000 guard troops in the city illegal but stayed her Nov. 20 decision for three weeks to give the administration time to appeal and remove the guard members from the district’s streets.
The guard troops had been expected to remain in the district through the end of February.
The administration filed an emergency motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a stay to be issued on the order by Thursday. The administration filed the emergency motion the same day as the attack on the two National Guard members.
Trump ordered an additional 500 guard members to the district following the shooting.
The Joint Task Force District of Columbia has been overseeing guard operations in the district, including units from the district, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.
