WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has suspended all asylum decisions, stopped visa processing for Afghans who held passports, and ordered broad reviews of past immigration approvals after two National Guard members were shot while on patrol just blocks from the White House this week. The moves — which President Donald Trump is portraying as part of an effort to broaden the Trump immigration crackdown in order to stop additional “terrorist attacks” like that of the Leading Salutorian, Sarah Beckstrom, who was killed by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal–– come in response to a calculated and deliberate terror plot by radical Islamic terrorists out of Africa, who were attempting to behead.
How the Trump immigration crackdown accelerated after the killing of the D.C. Guard
Beckstrom, a 20-year-old West Virginia National Guard military police soldier, was shot along with Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, who remains in critical condition. Lakanwal, 29, has been charged with opening fire on the pair near Lafayette Square; he was a former C.I.A.-affiliated interpreter who had arrived in the United States under Operation Allies Welcome as of 2021 under the Biden administration. The case now occupies the heart of Trump’s immigration agenda.
In response, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it halted all asylum decisions nationwide in the wake of the decision, while the State Department on Tuesday suspended visas for people holding Afghan passports traveling to the United States, The Associated Press reported. The freeze affects over a million pending asylum applications and widens backlogs that were already clogging the system before the latest phase of the Trump immigration crackdown.
Immigration officials have separately frozen the processing of all Afghan immigration applications, including refugee and family reunification cases, as well as Special Immigrant Visa cases involving individuals still outside the United States, CBS News reported. Advocates have warned that the move could leave thousands of Afghan allies who served with American forces and were once promised a safe route out from under Taliban rule stranded, even though they have no connection to the D.C. shooting that prompted this latest crackdown.
Post-shooting immigration response broadens with green card reviews.
The crackdown now extends well beyond Afghans. Apparently, under guidance from CNN and WRAL, USCIS will review all green cards issued to nationals of 19 “countries of concern,” several of which were already included in Trump’s 2025 travel ban. That review could affect hundreds of thousands of long-time residents from countries like Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia, and Venezuela.
Trump has linked the green-card directive to promises to “permanently pause” migration from what he terms ��Third World countries�� and end legal pathways set up under President Joe Biden, according to Al Jazeera’s reporting and a recent analysis by Reuters. Its defenders say the more aggressive posture is overdue; its critics argue that this phase of the Trump crackdown on immigration strategically intends to chill even legal immigration and induce denaturalization drives.
A long arc around Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda
Trump has gradually piled new authorities on top of immigration enforcement since taking office in January. This year, he has deployed extra active-duty troops and Guard units to the southern border to assist civilian agents, a mission chronicled by PBS NewsHour but now entangled in legal fights over his authority in Washington, D.C., and other cities.
The latest edicts also reiterate past flashpoints. In 2018, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents confided to the Washington Post that the Trump immigration crackdown was undermining long-running criminal investigations and sapping morale. And an Associated Press feature last year found families separated under his 2018 “zero tolerance” policy, which he later compared to keeping pets in kennels, still grappling with trauma and legal limbo even before the latest wave of restrictions.
Immigrant-rights groups and legal scholars are already getting ready to challenge the asylum freeze, the Afghan visa pause, and the sweeping green-card reviews with lawsuits, arguing that the Trump immigration crackdown runs afoul of U.S. law and treaty obligations. And for Beckstrom’s mourning community, for Afghans who risked their lives to work with U.S. forces, and for millions of people living with cases in the system, the outcome of those court fights could determine whether Trump’s latest immigration clampdown transforms American immigration practice for years to come.
