President Donald Trump has directed the federal agency that oversees legal immigration to the U.S. to conduct a sweeping review of green card holders from what the administration calls countries of concern, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Thursday.
“At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said Thursday afternoon in a statement on X.
Edlow said that protecting the country “remains paramount” and that “the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies.”
Asked for details on which countries are considered “of concern,” USCIS pointed to a June presidential proclamation listing 19 countries "considered deficient with regards to screening and vetting." Afghanistan is one of the countries on the list, which also includes Haiti, Iran and Venezuela.
The USCIS announcement comes a day after two National Guard members were shot near the White House. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her wounds, Trump said Thursday night, while 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe remained hospitalized in critical condition. They were in Washington as part of Trump’s deployment of federal troops to several U.S. cities.
Federal prosecutors say the suspect, an Afghan national who once assisted American forces, was resettled in the U.S. under a program called Operation Allies Welcome during the Biden administration following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said Thursday morning that her office is reviewing the suspect’s immigration history and the vetting process that allowed his entry into the country.
In a long post on X Friday, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent claimed that 85,000 Afghans were admitted to the U.S. under Biden without the “rigorous vetting that has protected us in the past.”
He continued, saying that the suspect was "only vetted to serve as a soldier to fight against the Taliban, AQ, & ISIS IN Afghanistan, he was NOT vetted for his suitability to come to America and live among us as a neighbor, integrate into our communities, or eventually become an American citizen."
Those admitted under the Operation Allies Welcome program were required to undergo "biometric and biographic screenings" by law enforcement and counterterrorism authorities, according to a fact sheet prepared by the Biden administration.
The suspect's immigration process continued into the Trump administration. He was granted asylum in April of this year, which typically occurs two weeks after a final interview with immigration authorities.
In a video released by the White House, Trump called the attack in Washington, D.C., an “act of terror” and said additional National Guard troops would be deployed to the nation's capital.
The administration said shortly after Trump's remarks that all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals will be halted indefinitely.
Authorities have not provided a motive, but D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said “this is a targeted shooting,” and that the suspect appeared to target the guard members.
Four senior law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation said the suspect has been identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
Speaking with NBC News on Wednesday, a relative of Lakanwal said he arrived in the U.S. in September 2021 after serving in the Afghan Army for 10 years, alongside U.S. Special Forces. Lakanwal was living in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and five children, the relative said.
“We were the ones that were targeted by the Taliban in Afghanistan,” said the relative. “I cannot believe it that he might do this.”
A CIA spokesperson said Thursday that the alleged shooter “previously worked with the USG (U.S. government), including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar that ended in 2021 following the withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Asked Thursday night about Lakanwal's vetting and the fact that he worked with the CIA, Trump responded: "He went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts. And that happens too, it happens too often with these people," an apparent reference to Afghans who came to the U.S. around the time of the 2021 withdrawal.
