Donald Trump has said he will “permanently halt immigration” to the US from all “third world countries”.
The US President said in a Truth Social post that the decision would allow the US system to “fully recover” from immigration policies that had destroyed the “benefits and living conditions” of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.
The president also blamed refugees for causing “social dislocation in America” and vowed to remove “anyone who is not a net asset to America.”
His comments come a day after an Afghan national was accused of shooting two National Guard members in Washington DC, killing one of them.
Trump previously said the shootings highlighted a major national security threat and promised to take steps to deport any alien “from any country that doesn’t belong here.”
On Wednesday, the US suspended processing of all immigration requests from Afghans, saying the decision was taken pending a review of “security and screening protocols”.
Then on Thursday, US Citizenship and Immigration Services said it would re-examine green cards issued to individuals who immigrated to the US from 19 countries.
When the BBC asked which countries were on the list, the agency pointed to a June White House announcement that included Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia and Venezuela.
There were no further details about what the re-examination would look like.
Trump’s latest post on Thursday night went further, promising to “end all federal benefits and subsidies for non-citizens.”
The flurry of announcements comes after reports that the suspect in the Washington DC shooting came to the US in 2021 under a program that offered special immigration protection to Afghans in the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Officials said Rahmanullah Laqnawa once worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and helped protect US forces at Kabul airport during the evacuation, a former military commander who worked with him told the BBC’s Afghan service.
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