President Trump said late Thursday night that he would suspend immigration from developing nations to the U.S.
In a post to Truth Social, Mr. Trump wrote that he “will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover.”
The declaration follows Wednesday’s shooting in downtown Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House, in which a National Guard member was killed and a second Guard member critically wounded. The suspect detained in the shooting has been identified as a 29-year-old Afghan national who was admitted to the U.S. in September 2021, along with thousands of other Afghan refugees, a month after the U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan.
Since the shooting, the Trump administration has taken an aggressive stance on U.S. immigration policies it says are to blame for allowing the suspect into the U.S., and has vowed to change them.
The president did not clarify when such a move might take effect or how the pause would be implemented. He also did not disclose which countries would fall under such a designation.
CBS News has reached out to the White House for clarification.
The president also wrote that he would “terminate” the status of millions of migrants admitted under former President Joe Biden’s administration and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.”
He said he would end “Federal benefits and subsidies” for “noncitizens” and deport foreign nationals who are determined to be a “security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
Earlier Thursday, the Trump administration said it would be conducting a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination” of all green cards for every immigrant from 19 countries “of concern.”
Those countries included Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Venezuela.
Also Thursday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to CBS News in a statement that the White House is now reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration.
Prior to the shooting, on Nov. 21, the Trump administration, in a memo directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to review the cases of all refugees admitted under Biden.
The suspect in the shooting, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, immigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan in September 2021, paroled on humanitarian grounds, a DHS official told CBS News. His asylum case was granted earlier this year, during Mr. Trump’s presidency, the DHS official said.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Thursday that the suspect lived with his family in Bellingham, Washington, and drove across the country to D.C. prior to the attack.
Mr. Trump said Thursday that the suspect, who was shot by a National Guard member following the ambush attack, is in serious condition. Authorities
The CIA also disclosed Thursday that Lakanwal previously worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar that ended in 2021 following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
