The Trump administration is promising a stricter anti-immigration agenda after an Afghan national was charged in the shooting of two National Guard members
The Trump administration is promising an even tougher anti-immigration agenda after an Afghan national was charged this week in the shooting of two National Guard members, with new restrictions targeting the tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the U.S. and those seeking to come, many of whom served alongside American soldiers in the two-decade war.
But those still waiting to come were already facing stricter measures as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on legal and illegal migration that began when he started his second term in January. And the Afghan immigrants living in the U.S. and now in the administration’s crosshairs were among the most extensively vetted, often undergoing years of security screening, experts and advocates say.
The suspected shooter, who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War, “was vetted both before he landed, probably once he landed, once he applied for asylum,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “But more importantly, he was almost certainly vetted extensively and much more by the CIA.”
Haris Tarin, a former U.S. official who worked on the Biden-era program that resettled Afghans, predicted that « as the investigation unfolds, you will see that this is not a failure of screening. This is a failure of us not being able to integrate — not just foreign intelligence and military personnel — but our own veterans, over the past 25 years.”
The program Operations Allies Welcome initially brought roughly 76,000 Afghans to the United States, many of whom had worked alongside American troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. The initiative was in place for around one year before shifting to a longer-term program called Operation Enduring Welcome. Almost 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S. under both programs.
Among those brought to the U.S. under the program was the alleged shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who now faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 20-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. The other National Guard member who was shot, 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition.
