The US Citizenship and Immigration Services said late on Wednesday it has stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely, after two National Guard soldiers were shot and critically wounded in Washington.
President Donald Trump said that the shooting near the White House was “an act of terror,” saying the suspect came from Afghanistan in 2021.
The move follows Trump’s call for his government to re-examine Afghan immigrants who entered the United States when Joe Biden was president.
“The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission,” the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a post on X.
Investigators have identified the suspect in the National Guard shooting as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national from Washington State, according to two Trump administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, according to the second official, a Biden-era program to resettle thousands of Afghans who assisted the US during the Afghanistan war and were vulnerable to reprisals from the ruling Taliban after the US withdrawal. He was processed through Washington Dulles International Airport on September 8 of that year.
Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23 of this year, according to the official, three months after President Donald Trump took office. He has no criminal history.
Trump, who was at his resort in Florida at the time of the attack, released a prerecorded video statement late on Wednesday calling the shooting “an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror.” He said his administration would “re-examine” all Afghans who came to the US during Joe Biden’s presidency.
The two soldiers, members of the West Virginia National Guard, were part of a “high-visibility patrol” around 2:15 p.m. ET (1915 GMT) near the corner of 17th and I streets, a few blocks from the White House. The suspect came around a corner and “ambushed” them, Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Jeff Carroll said at a press briefing.
After an exchange of gunfire, other National Guard troops subdued the shooter, he said. The two wounded soldiers were in critical condition at local hospitals, FBI Director Kash Patel said.
“This is a targeted attack,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the briefing.
The shooter appeared to have acted alone, officials said.
Trump ordered 500 more guard soldiers deployed to Washington, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters, joining about 2,200 already in the city as part of the president’s contentious immigration and crime crackdown targeting Democratic-led cities.
US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Kentucky on Wednesday, said in a post on X that the shooting proved that the Trump administration’s immigration policy was justified.
“We must redouble our efforts to deport people with no right to be in our country,” he said.
Critics of the Trump administration’s immigration policy say it has employed illegally harsh tactics and swept up immigrants indiscriminately, including some with no criminal history and others here legally.
