Donald Trump has said he will “forever stop immigration from all third world countries,” a day after the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., has become a political flashpoint in the president’s ongoing crackdown on immigration.
In a social media post that began with “a very happy thank you” sent just after 11pm on Thursday, the US president said his administration would “end all federal benefits and subsidies to non-citizens” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States”.
It is unclear how the president would implement such a “pause” on immigration. Previous bans issued by his administration have faced challenges in the courts and in Congress.
Earlier in the night, Trump announced the death of Sarah Beckstrom, one of two guard members killed in Wednesday’s attack near the White House. Officials suspect the shooting was carried out by Rahmanullah Luckanwal, an Afghan national who entered the U.S. in September 2021 under a Biden-era program that evacuated tens of thousands of people and resettled them after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He was granted asylum in April this year under the Trump administration, Reuters reported, and the CIA confirmed on Thursday that he had worked with military units supported by the agency during the US war in Afghanistan.
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Luckanwal, who was injured in the attack, is in custody. A second National Guard member, Andrew Wolff, 24, is still fighting for his life, according to the president.
The president’s late-night post marked an escalation in his second term’s anti-immigrant policies, which have been dominated by a campaign for mass deportation.
The extended screed posted on the president’s True Social account did not identify the countries he intended to target or explain what he meant by “Third-World,” but instead used blistering anti-immigrant rhetoric to blame issues like high crime and America’s growing deficit on the presence of immigrants and refugees.
In his post, the president singled out Somali communities in Minnesota, after promising to end temporary protected status for Somali people in the state last week.
Earlier in the day, Trump said the shooting in Washington D.C. “reminds us that there is no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have complete control over the people who enter and stay in our country.”
In the 24 hours after the shooting, the president and members of his administration announced sweeping immigration reforms. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has indefinitely suspended the processing of immigration requests related to Afghan nationals pending further review.
Later, the Department of Homeland Security said the administration was expanding to include a review of all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration. The department did not clarify whether it was reviewing all asylum cases from Afghanistan or from other countries.
USCIS Director Joseph Adlow said in a statement that Trump’s request was ordering “a full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern.”
Adlow’s statement did not specify which countries were considered countries of concern. USCIS pointed to Trump’s June travel ban on citizens of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Laos, Togo, Venezuela, Sierra Leone and Turkmenistan.
The travel ban, issued in 2017 during Trump’s first term, was widely criticized and faced legal and popular resistance when Trump tried to implement it soon after taking office. The policy was retooled by the White House after a lengthy court battle, but repealed by Joe Biden in 2021.
National Guard troops have been deployed in Washington, D.C., since August after the Trump administration declared a “crime emergency” and ordered support for federal and local law enforcement.
After Wednesday’s shooting, Trump said he would send an additional 500 National Guard troops to Washington, DC.
A federal judge ordered an end to the National Guard deployment last week but stayed his order for 21 days to give the Trump administration time to either withdraw the troops or appeal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
