Trump halts migration from ‘third world countries’ after Afghan suspect ‘shot two soldiers’
![Sharing image of an airlift from Afghanistan, the president said "Hundreds of thousands of people [have] poured into our Country totally unvetted and unchecked"](https://images.lbc.co.uk/images/774697?crop=16_9&width=660&relax=1&format=webp&signature=B_wb6J01kS8ChqolNm-3ae6vJ68=)
Donald Trump has announced the US will suspend migration from what he labelled ‘third world countries’ after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard soldiers in Washington DC.
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The US president wrote in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday evening: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover.”
Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died and Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically injured in the ambush shooting yards from the White House.
Suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, a former special forces commander from Afghanistan, who came to the US in 2021 as part of a resettlement programme, has been charged over the shooting.
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“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US 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,” Trump wrote.
He also said he would end all federal benefits and subsidies for “non-citizens”, adding he would “denaturalise migrants who undermine domestic tranquillity” and deport any foreign national deemed a public charge, security risk, or “non-compatible with Western civilization.”
The US paused immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely on Wednesday.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees US immigration, said in a post on social media: “Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”
The shooting suspect was evacuated to the United States through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era programme, arriving in Washington state on September 8 2021 after the fall of Kabul.
His two-year parole expired in mid-2024, leaving him undocumented and he applied for asylum that December, claiming he feared Taliban reprisals.
After vetting, the Trump administration granted him asylum and a work permit in April this year.