U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that his administration intends to maintain a temporary suspension of asylum decisions “for a long time,” following an incident in which an Afghan citizen shot two National Guard members near the White House.
اضافة اعلان
When asked if there was a set duration for the suspension, Trump replied that he had not set a “time limit” for the measure, which the Department of Homeland Security said applies to a list of 19 countries previously subject to travel restrictions.
Trump added, “We don’t want these people. Do you know why we don’t want them? Because many of them were not suitable and should not have been in our country.”
The Trump administration issued the suspension following the November 26 shooting in Washington, which killed 20-year-old Sarah Pickstrom and seriously injured a fellow guard.
The shooter, 29-year-old Afghan citizen Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the incident.
Lakanwal had previously served in a “partner force” supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban, before entering the U.S. through a resettlement program after the American military withdrawal in 2021.
He was granted asylum in April 2025 under the Trump administration, but officials blamed his entry on what they described as lax screening by former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Following the shooting, Trump tweeted that he plans to “permanently stop migration from all Third World countries to allow the American system to fully recover.”
When asked which nationalities would be affected by the suspension, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to the list of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, and others, whose citizens have faced travel restrictions to the United States since June.
(AFP)
