Newsman: President Donald Trump has pledged to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries,” in what would be a major escalation of the U.S. government’s tough-on-immigration policy.
Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform after a gunman opened fire near the White House on Wednesday, killing a National Guard member and wounding one of her colleagues.
Authorities identified the suspected shooter as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national.
Trump condemned the shooting on Wednesday as “an act of evil and act of hatred and an act of terror,” calling it “a crime against our entire nation.”
President Trump said the suspension will remain in place until the U.S. immigration system “fully recovers,” and vowed to terminate what he called “the millions of Biden illegal admissions.”
He also promised to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States or is incapable of loving our Country,” strip federal benefits from non-citizens, and deport any foreign national deemed a security risk, public burden or “incompatible with Western civilization.”
National Guard troops have been stationed in Washington since August, when Trump ordered their deployment as part of his intensified immigration enforcement and crackdown on street crime. Shortly after the shooting, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Trump had instructed him to deploy an additional 500 National Guard troops to Washington.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed to POLITICO that Lakanwal had previous ties to the U.S. — including to the intelligence agency.
“In the wake of the disastrous Biden Withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden Administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” Ratcliffe said.
“This individual — and so many others — should have never been allowed to come here. Our citizens and servicemembers deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden Administration’s catastrophic failures. God bless our brave troops,” he added.
