President Donald Trump called the shooting of two West Virginia National Guard Members in Washington, D.C. an “act of terror” and vowed the person responsible “will pay a very steep price.”
The Department of Homeland Security identified the suspect of the Wednesday shooting that left the two National Guard members in critical condition as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who travelled to the U.S. in 2021 under “Operation Allies Welcome.” The Biden Administration program oversaw the evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Lakanwal “was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States,” repeating a long-cited criticism of many Republicans, who argue the withdrawal—and subsequent evacuation and resettling of the Afghan nationals—in 2021 was rushed.
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While D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser called the act of violence a “targeted shooting,” a motive for the incident, which took place near the White House, has yet to be established, as the FBI are in the early stages of their investigation. However, the incident already looks to be becoming a touchstone of the Trump Administration’s wider immigration crackdown argument.
Addressing the nation from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Wednesday evening, Trump said the shooting was a “crime against our entire nation… against humanity” and “underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation.”
Trump said he’s determined the “animal” who carried out the shooting will pay “the steepest possible price.”
Pivoting the conversation to matters of immigration, Trump—who blamed the Biden Administration throughout his speech—called for the reexamination of all Afghan refugees who entered the U.S. under the Biden Administration. He went on to add that measures must be taken to ensure the removal of “any alien, from any country, who does not belong here or add benefit to our country.”
Vowing to “make America totally safe again,” Trump directed his Department of Defense, which was earlier this year rebranded as the Department of War, to deploy an “additional 500 troops” to Washington, D.C.
Read More: Two National Guard Members Shot in D.C.: What We Know So Far
The Trump Administration filed an emergency motion through the federal appeals court on Wednesday to keep the National Guard in D.C., after a judge last week temporarily blocked the Administration from keeping more than 2,000 members of the National Guard deployed to the capital’s streets. District Judge Jia Cobb argued that the deployment, initially carried out under Trump’s order in August, was most likely unlawful. She raised concerns that more than 1,000 members of the National Guard deployed to Washington appeared to be from other states.
Vowing to carry out Trump’s latest deployment directive, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said: “The shooter shot, in a cowardly, dastardly act, targeting the best of America. That will only stiffen our resolve. We will never back down. We will secure our capital.”
Following Trump’s speech, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that all immigration processing for Afghan nationals has been indefinitely paused.
“Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” read a statement shared via social media. “The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission.”
Richard Bennett, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, has urged against what some view as collective punishment.
“The perpetrator should face accountability, but the entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual,” said Bennett, adding that such actions would be “terribly unjust.”