“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.

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“People have gone without for too long, not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable,” said U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. 

Judge McConnell directly rebuked President Donald Trump for stating “his intent to defy” a court order by saying earlier this week that SNAP will not be funded until the government reopens from the ongoing government shutdown.

“It is clear to the court that the administration did not comply with this Court’s oral order of 10/31/25, or its written order of November 1, 2025,” McConnell said in Thurday’s order. “The court was clear that the administration had to either make the full payment by this past Monday, or it must ‘expeditiously resolve the administrative and clerical burdens’ it described in its papers, but under no circumstances shall the partial payments be made later than Wednesday, November 5, 2025. The record is clear that the administration did neither.”

“The government had an obligation in following the order to make the full payment so that people everywhere throughout the country would get their SNAP benefits immediately,” the judge said. “We’ve now gone six days without needed food to the 42 million, 16 million children. Irreparable harm. That’s what the court’s temporary restraining order attempted to resolve.”

McConnell, in Thursday’s order, criticized the Trump administration for only making a partial payment when it had additional emergency funds and knew the payments would not be delivered in time to comply with his court order.

“Without SNAP funding for the month of November, 16 million children are immediately at risk of going hungry,” said Judge McConnell. “Children are immediately at risk of going hungry. This should never happen in America.”

President Trump says he has asked court to ‘clarify’ SNAP ruling with funding set to lapse.

“In fact, the day before the compliance was ordered, the president stated his intent to defy the court order when he said, ‘SNAP payments will be given only when the government opens,'” the judge said.

McConnell last Friday ordered the government to use emergency funds to pay for SNAP in time for the Nov. 1 payments to be made — but the administration committed to only partially funding the program, saying they had to save the additional funds for child nutrition programs.  

DOJ lawyers, in a court filing late Thursday, said they intend to appeal Thursday’s order, as well as McConnell’s order from last week requiring SNAP be funded.

After the Trump administration earlier this week committed to paying out 65% of the typical SNAP amount by tapping into emergency funds, a group of nonprofits and local governments argued that partially funding SNAP was insufficient to comply with the McConnell’s order.

“Given Congress’s failure to appropriate sufficient funds for November SNAP benefits and USDA’s adherence to both the statute and its own regulations regarding partial benefits, it cannot be arbitrary and capricious for USDA to decline to raid an entirely different program, to the tune of billions of dollars, in the mere hope that Congress will fix the ensuing deficit through the general appropriations process,” DOJ lawyers responded in a court filing Wednesday.

McConnell originally gave the Trump administration a choice between making a full payment by Monday or a partial payment by Wednesday, saying the government was required to “expeditiously eliminate” any potential delays to make sure SNAP benefits would continue. Because they failed to do so — acknowledging in their own court papers that the payments could take weeks or months — the Trump administration did not comply with the court’s temporary restraining order, the judge ruled.

Judge McConnell also directly criticized Trump for declaring a “intent to defy” the court’s order by stating that SNAP payments would not be funded until the government reopens.

Vice President JD Vance responded to the ruling on Thursday, saying, “It’s an absurd ruling, because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown.”

“In the midst of a shutdown, we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation,” Vance added, placing blame on the Democrats for the shutdown.

Trump administration will partially fund SNAP, but it could take months

A Justice Department lawyer argued that any delay in payments should be blamed on the states that administer programs, not the federal government, which he said completed a partial payment.

“Your Honor, the government complied with the court’s order,” said DOJ lawyer Tyler Becker. “We stated on Monday night, when we filed with the court, that … we resolved all of the burdens that the government is responsible for under the regulations and under the statute.”

Kristin Bateman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, argued that the Trump administration was deliberately flouting the court’s order to gain political leverage. While the Trump administration argued it was reserving additional emergency funds for child nutrition programs, she called the claim “facially implausible” because the government has enough money to pay for child nutrition programs through June.

“[They] have not explained why they would choose to let 42 million Americans, including 16 million children, go hungry now, in order to guard against the extreme outside chance that come June, there won’t be enough money to fund child nutrition programs,” she said. “What defendants are really trying to do is to leverage people’s hunger to gain partisan political advantage in the shutdown fight,” she said.

Judge McConnell said statements by Trump and other top officials “who admit to withholding full SNAP benefits for political reasons” directly undermine the argument that the government was saving emergency funds to pay for child nutrition programs.

McConnell said the government’s argument that it did not want to tap into emergency funds in order to protect child nutrition programs was implausible, and accused the Trump administration of “erroneously and intentionally” conflating the funding. He highlighted that the child nutrition programs are currently funded through at least May, while SNAP has already run out of money.

“Contrary to the defendant’s argument, 29 million children are not at risk of going hungry,” he said. “Transferring approximately $4 billion to fully fund November SNAP benefits would still leave $19.35 billion in Section 32 funds, enough to fully fund child nutrition programs through May and beyond.”

The judge McConnell faulted the Trump administration for doing “nothing” to alleviate the delays associated with a partial payment.

Food banks, pantries see surge in demand after SNAP benefits halted

 “USDA cannot now cry that it cannot get timely payments to beneficiaries for weeks or months because states are not prepared to make partial payments,” he said, referring to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates SNAP. “USDA arbitrarily and capriciously created this problem by ignoring the congressional mandate for contingency funds and failing to timely notify the states.”

The judge said the Trump administration was causing “irreparable harm” by not ensuring that millions of Americans get critical assistance.

“To be clear, irreparable harm means harm to families, elderly, children and others that cannot be undone. The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur,” he said.

Judge McConnell became one of the first federal district court judges in Trump’s second term to block a Trump executive action when earlier this year he issued an injunction against an Office of Management and Budget memo ordering an across-the-board freeze on all government spending. The memo was later rescinded by the administration.

McConnell, in rare public remarks for a federal judge, said recently that he has had six credible death threats directed at him in the wake of that episode.

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The U.S. embassy’s shelter-in-place order for U.S. personnel in Israel remains in effect “until further notice” as a result of the conflict between Israel and Iran, the State Department said in a notice.

“U.S. citizens who wish to depart should not delay in taking advantage of commercial transportation options,” the notice said.

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Secretary of State Rubio said the State Department, under his leadership, “has now made clear that a visa is a privilege, not a right.”

“There is now a one-strike policy: Catch-And-Revoke,” Rubio said in a social media post on May 2. “Whenever the government catches non-U.S. citizens breaking our laws, we will take action to revoke their status.”

The policy, originally announced April 30 in a newsletter authored by Rubio, suggests it will pursue immigrants convicted of criminal activity, including domestic violence and assault.

But the policy announcement didn’t specify the spectrum of crimes that could result in a visa revocation, and immigration experts questioned how it might be implemented, given the Trump administration’s far-reaching crackdown.

The State Department issues non-immigrant visas to tourists, students, nannies, investors, the spouses and children of legal permanent residents, and other categories of visitors and residents.

The administration in late April reversed its decision to cancel the visas of hundreds of foreign students nationwide after students and their supporters filed numerous court challenges.

Most recently, the administration aggressively targeted student visa holders who have protested Israel’s war in Gaza or voiced pro-Palestinian views. Students with minor violations, including traffic infractions, have also seen their visas terminated.

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Thousands of international students had their visas revoked in April. Data from Inside Higher Ed shows at least 280 colleges and universities reported more than 1,800 international students and recent graduates had their legal status altered by the State Department. An estimated 1.1 million international students study in the United States as of the 2023-2024 school year.

The data is based on public reports and direct correspondence compiled by Inside Higher Ed. The number could be even higher − the database notes that several universities did not indicate the amount of visas that had been revoked. Reported cases of student visa terminations are shown A number with an asterisk indicates a positive change in the count, such as a visa reinstatement, according to the author of the database.

Universities reported some students being forced to leave the United States immediately, in many cases after discovering their visas were canceled in the federal Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS) or via an unexpected text or email.

Universities and the government use the database to track foreign students, and students rely on it for their authorization to remain in the country. The terminations sparked more than 100 lawsuits. NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, has tallied roughly 1,400 revocations.

Erasing records from SEVIS is different from revoking visas, USA TODAY has reported. These records allow international students to stay in the United States legally and attend classes.

The California State University system reported a total 70 student visas revoked, and the University of Texas system reported 170, according to Inside Higher Ed.

The National Immigration Project is challenging the visa cancellations, which have affected students in California, Colorado, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts and Florida, among others.

According to the federal government, California is home to the largest number of international students, and the most popular majors among international students are computer science, language, and business administration and management.

People from India and China represent the largest proportion of international students, accounting for about half of the overall enrollment, according to federal officials.

New York University has the largest concentration of international students with 22% of its student body from foreign countries, an Open Doors report shows. Northeastern University in Boston follows with the largest international student body population.

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“We cannot accept that the international community forgets about the Rohingyas,” he said, adding that he will “speak loudly” to world leaders that more support is urgently needed.

“It is essential that the international community does everything to make sure that peace is reestablished in Myanmar and that the rights of the Rohingyas are respected, that discrimination and persecution like the one we have witnessed in the past, will end.”

He stressed that the solution to the crisis “must be found in Myanmar.” 

“We will not give up until conditions allow for the voluntary, safe and sustainable return for all refugees here.”

Mr. Guterres also highlighted the dire conditions in the camps, worsened by climate change. 

“These camps – and the communities that host them – are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Summers are scorching, and the chance of fires skyrocket. In the cyclone and monsoon seasons, floods and dangerous landslides destroy homes and lives,” he said.

Beyond immediate aid, he stressed the need for education, skills training and opportunities for the refugees, warning that many families feel they have no option but to risk perilous sea journeys in search of a better future.

Mr. Guterres ended his visit to Cox’s Bazar by participating in an Iftar meal with Rohingya refugees.

“Fasting and having an Iftar together with you are proof of my deep respect for your religion and your culture,” he said.

“This is the holy month of Ramadan, the month of solidarity.  It would be unacceptable that in the month of solidarity, the international community would reduce the support to the Rohingyas in Bangladesh,” he added, stressing that he would do everything to ensure it does not happen.

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Gabbard announced the firings in a Tuesday night appearance on Fox News but did not say what the employees discussed in what appeared to be private employee support groups, or why it constituted grounds for dismissal. She said the employees were using the chatrooms inappropriately to talk about “really, really horrific behavior.”

“There were over 100 people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and participated in this – what is really just an egregious violation of trust, basic rules and standards around professionalism,” Gabbard said. “I put out a directive today that they all will be terminated and their security clearances will be revoked.”

The chat rooms were run by the ultra-secret National Security Agency (NSA) through its multi-agency Intelink platform to allow the nation’s spies and intel analysts to internally discuss a broad array of topics, including those involving diversity, equity and inclusion issues − and gender-affirming surgeries, according to a report Monday by conservative activist and journalist Christopher Rufo in City Journal.

In his article, Rufo quoted an unidentified NSA press official saying, “All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission related material on Intelink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.”

Tulshi Gabbard thanked Rufo “for putting it all out online.” A day earlier, he published a report about “the NSA’s Secret Sex Chats,” with purported chat logs showing participants engaging in “wide-ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory, and castration.”

“One popular chat topic” was gender-affirming surgery, Rufo reported, using outdated terminology. Rufo included chat logs with purported conversations among employees in which they detailed their sex lives after transitioning, as well as “hair removal, estrogen injections, and the experience of sexual pleasure post-castration.”

He said some of the conversations were held within LGBTQ+ employee resource groups and meetings with titles such as “Privilege,” “Ally Awareness,” “Pride,” and “Transgender Community Inclusion.”

In an official post on @X, the National Security Agency said it was aware of posts “that appear to show inappropriate discussions by IC personnel.”

The agency did not elaborate on specifics but  it said, “Potential misuse of these platforms by a small group of individuals does not represent the community. Investigations to address this misuse of government systems are ongoing.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, which oversees the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, has sent a memo directing them to identify all employees who participated in the NSA’s “obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit” chatrooms by Friday, according to DNI spokesperson Alexa Henning.

Gabbard described the firings as the first step in a Trump administration campaign to “clean house, root out that rot and corruption and weaponization and politicization, so we can start to rebuild that trust in these institutions.”

She said the ODNI and other intelligence agencies were receiving tips about those issues from “people (who) are stepping forward because they are all on board with the mission to clean house and refocus on our core mission of serving the American people.”

In an unrelated matter, both the ODNI and the CIA have moved to fire an undisclosed number of employees as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to rid the government of DEI initiatives. Some of these workers sued on the grounds that their dismissals violated federal workforce laws against discrimination.

“None of these officers’ activities was or is illegal, and at no time have the agencies employing Plaintiffs contended that they individually engaged in any misconduct, nor are they accused of poor performance,” the officers said in their complaint against Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. paused the firings of 11 CIA officers on Feb. 18 until he could review the matter. A ruling in that case could come as early as Thursday. 

Immediately upon taking office last month, President Donald Trump also signed an executive order revoking the security clearances of 50 former intelligence officials.

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The total number of detainees with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges arrested by ICE and currently in detention did rise over the last two weeks, going up 18% in the last two weeks, from about 14,000 to more than 16,500.

The administration’s public messaging continues to center around alleged criminality. ICE’s page on X highlights the arrests of people it says have been convicted of murder, domestic violence, manslaughter, theft, child pornography and other crimes.

During federal fiscal year 2024, the Biden administration made 113,431 immigration arrests, and of those, only 28% were of people who had no criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.

Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, told NBC News,  immigrants without criminal records are often “far from innocent” but declined to provide further data.

The new detention data from ICE, which is a snapshot from late last week, shows that its detention centers are at the upper limits of their capacity. The number of people detained went from 39,238 in early February to 41,169 in mid-February. ICE’s detention capacity nationwide is 41,500.  It’s unclear how many people who had been in detention were deported or were released through the Alternatives to Detention monitoring program during these two weeks.

NBC News previously reported that President Donald Trump was frustrated by the slow pace of immigrant arrests and deportations, and that two top ICE officials were demoted in response.

One factor in the pace has been the lack of detention space in ICE facilities. And the new data paints a much clearer picture of the dilemma that administration officials face as they try to clear out existing detainees to make room for more new arrestees.

According to the data, only 13% of those currently in ICE detention are on track for “expedited removal,” a designation indicating they can be deported without having a court hearing. The remaining 87% are facing deportation proceedings which could last for months or even years.

Immigration courts are facing a backlog of 3.6 million cases and, as a result, some pending cases may not be heard for years. At least 16,000 current ICE detainees have notices to appear in court, which means they are waiting for a court date.

To relieve space, the administration is now using new detention locations in Texas and Kentucky. It is also seeking to expand detention capacity available to its Denver field office, which includes Colorado and Wyoming, by at least 900 beds, according to new public documents.

The Trump administration has also begun transferring immigration detainees to Guantanamo Bay, where it eventually plans to hold as many as 30,000 people. It has already brought 112 detainees there, and more flights are in the works.

The new detainees are overwhelmingly male, a consistent trend. Just 22 female detainees were booked over the last two weeks, according to the data: 11 with criminal convictions or charges, and 11 without.

Available data on total ICE arrests during the Trump administration is less precise. ICE had been posting daily arrest totals to X in the early days of the Trump’s second term, but that effort stopped Feb. 1. It’s unclear if the average number of arrests per day is still surpassing the Biden administration’s average of 282 in September 2024, the most recent month from which data is available.

A dashboard that ICE launched in December 2023 that summarized arrests, deportation and detention data has not been updated since September 2024 accordin to the NBC report.

The federal government has also stopped tracking the number of transgender people in ICE detention, which was a part of its previous data collection efforts. Data from mid-January showed 47 transgender detainees in ICE facilities.

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President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday,

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social. “A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

Trump’s  attack on Zelenskyy which inflates the amount of money the U.S. has provided in aid and asserts without evidence that half of it was “MISSING” — came after Zelenskyy said earlier on Wednesday that Trump was “surrounded by misinformation” in response to the president’s comments on Tuesday in which he blamed Ukraine for starting the war.

Trump administration negotiators meeting with Russian officials earlier this week — without Ukraine at the table — to start negotiations to potentially end the war Russia started.

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The comments come from negotiations that began early Tuesday between U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia. The president also asserted that Ukrainians, who are fighting for their country’s survival, “are tired” of the death and destruction and eager to see the war end. “People want to see something happen.”

 Asserting that the initial round of talks had gone “very well,” Trump bristled at Zelenskyy’s frustration over being excluded and at the Ukrainian president’s decision not to fly to Riyadh for additional talks with the U.S. delegation this week.

“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited,’” Trump said when asked about criticism from Ukraine, seeming to direct his response to Zelenskyy. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.”

The Ukrainian president has been excluded from the administration’s negotiations with Russia seeking an end to the war. Donald Trump also confirmed his interest in forcing elections in Ukraine as part of any diplomatic resolution to the war.

Trump also confirmed his interest in forcing elections in Ukraine as part of any diplomatic resolution to the war.

“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,” Trump said.

While Zelenskyy’s public approval rating has dropped from the early days of the war, he still has support from a narrow majority of Ukrainians — 52 percent according to a poll last month.

Trump also pushed back on a question stating that forcing Zelenskyy to stand for reelection was a Russian priority.

“That’s not a Russia thing,” Trump said. “That’s something coming from me and a lot of other countries also.”

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