WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday’s “heinous assault” on two National Guard members near the White House proves that lax migration policies are “the single greatest national security threat facing our nation.”
“No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival,” he said.
Trump’s remarks, released in a video on social media, underscores his intention to reshape the country’s immigration system and increase scrutiny of migrants who are already here. With aggressive deportation efforts already underway, his response to the shooting showed that his focus will not waver.
The suspect in the shooting is believed to be an Afghan national, according to Trump and two law enforcement officials. He entered the United States in September 2021, after the chaotic collapse of the government in Kabul, when Americans were frantically evacuating people as the Taliban took control.
The 29-year-old suspect was part of Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden-era program that resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said. The initiative brought roughly 76,000 Afghans to the United States, many of whom had worked alongside American troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators.
It has since faced intense scrutiny from Trump and his allies, congressional Republicans and some government watchdogs over gaps in the vetting process and the speed of admissions, even as advocates say it offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.
Trump described Afghanistan as “a hellhole on earth,” and he said his administration would review everyone who entered from the country under President Joe Biden — a measure his administration had already been planning before the incident.
During his remarks, Trump also swung his focus to Minnesota, where he complained about “hundreds of thousands of Somalians” who are “ripping apart that once-great state.”
Minnesota has the country’s largest Somali community, roughly 87,000 people. Many came as refugees over the years.
The reference to immigrants with no connection to Wednesday’s developments was a reminder of the scope of Trump’s ambitions to rein in migration.
Administration officials have been ramping up deportations of people in the country illegally, as well as clamping down on refugee admissions. The focus has involved the realignment of resources at federal agencies, stirring concern about potentially undermining other law enforcement priorities.
However, Trump’s remarks were a signal that scrutiny of migrants and the nation’s borders will only increase. He said he wants to remove anyone “who does not belong here or does not add benefit to our country.”
“If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” Trump added.
Afterward, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it would indefinitely stop processing all immigration requests for Afghan nationals pending a review of security and vetting protocols.
Supporters of Afghan evacuees said they feared that people who escaped danger from the Taliban would now face renewed suspicion and scrutiny.
“I don’t want people to leverage this tragedy into a political ploy,” said Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac.
He said Wednesday’s shooting should not shed a negative light on the tens of thousands of Afghan nationals who have gone through the various legal pathways to resettling in the U.S. and those who await in the pipeline.
Under Operation Allies Welcome, tens of thousands of Afghans were first brought to U.S. military bases around the country, where they completed immigration processing and medical evaluations before settling into the country. Four years later, there are still scores of Afghans who were evacuated at transit points in the Middle East and Europe as part of the program.
Those in countries like Qatar and Albania, who have undergone the rigorous process, have been left in limbo since Trump entered his second term and paused the program as part of his series of executive actions cracking down on immigration.
Vice President JD Vance, writing on social media, criticized Biden for “opening the floodgate to unvetted Afghan refugees,” adding that “they shouldn’t have been in our country.”
“Already some voices in corporate media chirp that our immigration policies are too harsh,” he said. “Tonight is a reminder of why they’re wrong.”
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Amiri reported from New York. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
