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President Donald Trump said Sunday his administration plans to keep a pause on asylum decisions in place “for a long time” following the fatal shooting of a National Guard member near the White House, a crime authorities say was carried out by an Afghan national who had been granted asylum earlier this year.
When pressed on how long the measure would last, the president said he had “no time limit” in mind. The Department of Homeland Security has linked the pause to a list of 19 countries already subject to U.S. travel restrictions.
“We don’t want those people,” President Trump said. “You know why we don’t want them? Because many have been no good, and they shouldn’t be in our country.”
The administration enacted the pause after the Nov. 26 shooting that killed 20-year-old National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom and left another guardsman critically wounded. Authorities arrested Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, and charged him with first-degree murder.
Lakanwal, according to U.S. officials, had served as part of a CIA-backed partner force fighting the Taliban before entering the United States through a resettlement program following the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Although the asylum approval occurred under the current administration, officials have attributed his presence in the United States to what they described as lax vetting during the Afghan airlift under former President Joe Biden. Critics of the pause have noted that Lakanwal’s asylum status was finalized years after the initial evacuation.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization,” President Trump wrote last week.
The Department of Homeland Security, when asked which nationalities would be affected, pointed to the list of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar, that have been under U.S. travel restrictions since June.
