The Trump administration has promised a tougher anti-immigration agenda after an Afghan national was charged this week with shooting two people. National Guard membersWith new restrictions targeting tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the United States and those seeking to come there, many of whom served alongside American soldiers in the two-decade war.
But those still waiting to come were already facing tougher measures as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on legal and illegal immigration that began when he began his second term in January. Afghan immigrants living in the United States, now in the administration’s crosshairs, were among the most widely vetted, often subject to years of security screening, experts and advocates say.
The suspected shooter, who worked for the CIA during the Afghanistan war, “was screened before he arrived, perhaps as soon as he arrived, as soon as he applied for asylum,” said Andrew Seeley, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “But more importantly, he was almost certainly examined extensively and much more by the CIA.”
“As the investigation unfolds, you will see that this is not a failure of vetting. It is a failure of our inability to integrate — not just foreign intelligence and military personnel — but our veterans, over the last 25 years,” predicted Harris Tareen, a former US official who worked on the Biden-era Afghan resettlement program.
Initially, Operations Welcome Allies brought approximately 76,000 Afghans to the United States, many of whom had sought refuge in Afghanistan. She worked alongside American forces and diplomats as interpreters and translators. The initiative remained in place for about a year before transforming into a long-term program called “Operation Always Welcome.” Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States under both programs.
Among those brought to the United States under the program was the alleged shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakkanwal, who now faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 20-year-old specialist Sarah Beckstrom. The other National Guard member who was shot was 24-year-old Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition.
These resettlements are now on hold. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced late Friday that the State Department has temporarily stopped issuing visas to all people traveling on Afghan passports.
Trump and his allies used the shooting to criticize loopholes in the US vetting process and speed of approval, although some Republicans spent the months and years after the 2021 withdrawal criticizing the Biden administration for not moving quickly enough to approve some requests from Afghan allies.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Lakhanwal “should not have been allowed to come here,” Trump called lax immigration policies “the greatest national security threat facing our nation,” and Vice President J.D. Vance said Biden’s policy “opens the door to unvetted Afghan refugees.”
That rhetoric quickly turned into political ads, with Trump saying he would “permanently stop all immigration” from a list of nearly 20 countries, “end all of Biden’s illegal admission millions,” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” Many of these changes have already been implemented through a series of executive orders over the past 10 months, including most recently in June.
“They highlight practices that were already in place,” said Andrea Flores, a lawyer who was an immigration policy adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations.
Lakhanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, and his application was approved in April this year after undergoing comprehensive screening, according to #AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who helped the United States during the war.
Flores said the system has worked across administrations: “You might hear people say, ‘Well, he got asylum under Trump.’ And that’s Trump’s problem. “That’s not how our immigration system works. It’s based on the same bed. No asylum laws have been changed by Congress.”
Trump and other US officials used the attack to demand re-screening of everyone who came to the United States from Afghanistan, a country he described on Thursday as a “hell hole on Earth.”
“These policies were already creating widespread disruption and fear among families who were legally admitted,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said in a statement Friday. “What is new and deeply troubling is the attempt to retroactively link all of this to a single act of violence in a way that casts suspicion on entire nationalities, including Afghan allies who have risked their lives to protect our forces.”
This has left nearly 200,000 Afghans currently living across the United States in deep fear and shame over the actions of one person in their community. Those in the United States now worry about their legal status being revoked, while others wait in the immigration line here and abroad in limbo.
Nizar, a 22-year-old Afghan who arrived in America weeks after the fall of Kabul, said he was just beginning to integrate into life in the United States when the attack occurred on Wednesday. He agreed to speak to the AP on the condition that only his first name be used for fear of retaliation or targeting by immigration officials.
“Finally, life became easier for me. I learned to speak English. I found a better job,” he said. “But after this happened two days ago, I honestly went to the grocery store this morning, and I was feeling uncomfortable among all these people. I was like, ‘Maybe they’re looking at me now the same way the shooter looked at me.'”
Two days before the shooting, Nassar and his father, who worked for the Afghan president during the war, secured an interview appointment on December 13 to apply for a green card, a moment he said they had been working toward for four years. However, he says it is now unclear whether their application will go ahead or whether an interview will take place.
Another Afghan national, who also spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said that after fearing for his life under Taliban rule, he felt a sense of peace and hope when he finally obtained a special immigrant visa to come to the United States two years ago.
He said he believes he can use his experience working as a defense lawyer in Afghanistan to contribute to American society. But now he says the actions of “an extremist who, despite taking advantage of the safety and livelihood this country offers, undoubtedly attacked two American soldiers,” he and other Afghans will face scrutiny again.
He added: “It seems that whenever a terrorist commits a crime, its shadow falls on me just because I am from Afghanistan.”
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Associated Press writer Renata Brito contributed to this report from Barcelona, Spain.