Visa bans and asylum applications have been suspended following the shooting death of two National Guard members in Washington, DC.
The announcement on Friday came as United States immigration officials said they were also pausing decisions on all asylum applications for the foreseeable future.
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed in a post on Twitter on Friday that the State Department has “paused issuing visas for all individuals traveling on Afghan passports”.
The move comes after authorities named Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal as the prime suspect in Wednesday’s shooting in Washington, DC, that left one National Guard member dead and another in critical condition.
“The United States of America has no higher priority than protecting our country and our people,” Rubio said.
President Trump’s State Department has stopped issuing visas for all individuals traveling on Afghan passports.
The United States has no higher priority than defending its nation and its people. https://t.co/HuR1Lj7F9t
– Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) 28 November 2025
Lacanwall is accused of ambushing West Virginia National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe while they were on patrol near the White House.
On Thursday evening, the Trump administration confirmed that Beckstrom, 20, died from his injuries, while Wolfe, 24, remained in critical condition.
The CIA confirmed this week that Lacanwal had worked for the spy agency in Afghanistan before immigrating to the US shortly after the withdrawal of Western forces from the country in 2021.
The office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia announced Friday that the charges against Lacanval have been upgraded to first-degree murder, along with two counts of assault with intent to murder while armed.
In a separate announcement on Friday, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow said the agency had also paused all asylum decisions in the interest of “the safety of the American people.”
“USCIS has paused all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is screened and vetted to the maximum extent possible,” Edlow said in a post on Twitter.
A day earlier, Edlow had said that he had ordered “a full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern” at Trump’s direction.
The moves are the latest in a series of escalating restrictions on immigration to the US imposed at Trump’s insistence.
Trump, who called the deadly Washington, D.C., attack a “terrorist attack,” has on several occasions in recent days attacked the immigration policies of former President Joe Biden’s administration, including granting visas to Afghan citizens serving with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
After the US withdrawal in 2021, Lakanwal came to the US under the Biden-era program known as “Operation Ally’s Welcome”.
In a post on his Truth social platform on Thursday, Trump ordered officials to re-examine all green card applications from 19 “countries of concern” before announcing he planned to suspend immigration from “all third world countries.”
He did not define the term “Third World”, but the phrase is often used as shorthand for developing countries in the Global South.
Trump also said he would remove “anyone who is not a pure asset to the United States, or incapable of loving our country”.
He said, “[I]would denaturalize immigrants who undermine domestic peace, and would deport any foreign national who poses a public charge, a security risk, or is incompatible with Western civilization.”
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has already taken aggressive steps to restrict immigration, announcing in October that his administration would accept only 7,500 refugees in 2026 — the lowest number since the 1980s.
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