Trump’s crackdown on Afghan refugees won’t make Americans any safer. In fact, it will risk a lot of lives.
The Trump administration’s response to last week’s shooting in D.C. of two West Virginia National Guard members has been to double down on its anti-immigration agenda. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national, so President Donald Trump has halted all asylum decisions and paused visas for Afghan passport holders. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has announced that the government is “actively re-examining” all Afghan nationals who entered the country under President Joseph Biden. CBS reports that the administration is thinking of expanding its travel ban from 19 to 30 countries.
“This attack underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation”, Trump declared after the shootings. The president blamed the Biden administration for allowing “unknown” and “unvetted” migrants to come to the U.S. from Afghanistan—which Trump called “a hellhole on Earth”—and other countries. “No country”, he said, “can tolerate such a risk to our very survival”, insinuating that immigrants bring crime and violence with them.
Such rhetoric has been used to justify the harshest parts of Trump’s mass deportations. Since he took office, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has detained a record-breaking 66,000 individuals—including 600 children—and has skirted many constitutional rights in the process.
