Newsman: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced after the shooting that it was pausing all immigration applications from Afghan nationals.
“Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” the agency said in a post on X on Wednesday.
Most travel and immigration from Afghanistan to the United States was already suspended. Afghanistan was one of the nations included in Trump’s travel ban last June. The president cited visa overstays and a lack of appropriate screening and vetting measures as the reason.
Afghan nationals who entered the country on Special Immigrant Visas after helping the U.S. military or acting as a translator were among a handful of exceptions.
Over 190,000 Afghans were resettled in the U.S. under both operations, “Allies Welcome” and “Enduring Welcome,” the two immigration programs the U.S. devised to help Afghans who had worked alongside U.S. diplomats and military personnel in Afghanistan, according to the State Department.
As part of that application process, applicants and their families underwent multiple security screenings by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement before they left Afghanistan. They were also vetted when they transited to the U.S. via other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates.
Most Afghans were given the right to enter, work, and remain in the U.S. for two years. They were not automatically given permanent residence. Lakanwal, the 29-year-old Afghan national identified as the suspect in the Washington, D.C. shooting, overstayed his visa.
Afghan refugee group denounces Trump for pausing immigration
An organization that supports refugees fleeing Afghanistan is condemning the Trump administration for pausing immigration applications in the wake of two National Guard members being shot by an Afghan national.
Lakanwal, 29, came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021 as part of a Biden-era program for Afghans who worked with the U.S. military. He was granted asylum by the Trump administration in April, according to multiple news organizations.
Arash Azizzada, co-director of Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, a community-led advocacy group, said the U.S. must acknowledge that its “forever wars” are a major reason why so many Afghans seek safety here, and that blaming refugees for the consequences of a single action is unjust.
“President Trump is using this tragedy as a pretext to demonize, criminalize, and target an entire community,” Azizzada said in a statement to USA TODAY.
“Exploiting a single incident to cast suspicion on Afghans, people who have already endured decades of displacement and the consequences of America’s forever wars, is both irresponsible and cruel.”
Trump has laid down a gauntlet in the shooting’s aftermath, saying it “underscores the single greatest national security threat” to the nation.
No motive has been established for why Lakanwal, who resided in Washington state with his wife and five children, drove across the country to the nation’s capital and shot the two guard members. But he did work alongside U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan.
