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Green Card review: Trump govt issues strict order after National Guard troops shot; full list of countries affected
Two National Guard soldiers were shot in Washington DC by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who comes from Afghanistan.
The Donald Trump administration has issued a strict order of Green Card reviews after two National Guard members were shot in Washington DC, on November 27. The suspect, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, hails from Afghanistan.
In the wake of the shooting, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the immediate and indefinite suspension of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals.
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Now, the new order states that Green Card holders of 19 countries will have their documents reviewed. As per US officials, the Afghan immigrant suspected of shooting the two in DC entered the U.S. in 2021 under a resettlement program.
The USCIS director, Joseph Edlow, has also said in a statement he's directing a "full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern" at Trump's request.
Edlow added, “The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies. American safety is non negotiable.”
Which countries will be impacted by this?
Edlow, when asked about which countries would be impacted, pointed to the list of places on which Trump imposed a travel ban in June.
These include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Prior to this, the President had already called for the "re-examination" of all Afghan nationals who came to the country under Biden, saying that the US needed to take measures to ensure anyone who did not “add benefit to our country” was removed.
As for Lakanwal, he came to the US in 2021 under the Operation Allies Welcome plan after assisting the US in Afghanistan. However, he was just granted asylum just last April. CNN reported, citing a US official, that the suspect was ‘clean on all checks’ before working with the government or heading to the US.
(With Reuters inputs)
