The United States President, Donald Trump, has announced plans to suspend migration from what he described as “third-world countries”, following the fatal shooting of a National Guard soldier in Washington DC.
The announcement came a day after an Afghan national allegedly opened fire on two National Guard personnel on patrol near the White House, killing one and leaving the other critically injured.
In a strongly worded post on social media, President Trump threatened to roll back “millions” of immigration admissions approved under former President Joe Biden, saying his administration would remove anyone he described as “not a net asset” to the US.
American investigators say the shooting, described as an “ambush-style attack”, has triggered an international terror probe by the FBI.
Authorities identified the suspect as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who previously worked with US forces in Afghanistan and later resettled in the United States.
President Trump confirmed the deceased soldier as 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, deployed from the West Virginia National Guard as part of his administration’s expanded security operations in Washington.
The second victim, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, is reportedly “fighting for his life”.
US officials say the suspect drove from the western state of Washington to carry out the attack, using a .357 handgun to fire at a group of soldiers on patrol close to the White House.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services says it has begun a “full-scale review” of Green Cards issued to migrants from countries on an existing travel-restriction list, including Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, Cuba and Myanmar.
Meanwhile, information from AfghanEvac, a group involved in resettling former Afghan allies, indicates that the suspect had passed extensive security vetting and was granted asylum in April 2025.
The incident has reignited debates surrounding immigration, the Afghan war legacy and President Trump’s controversial deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to Democratic-run cities.
The US Defence Department has now ordered an additional 500 troops to Washington, raising the number of deployed personnel to 2,500.