Donald Trump has declared that he will “permanently pause migration from all third world countries,” a day after two national guard members were shot in Washington DC in an incident that has quickly become central to his administration’s hardline immigration push.
In a social media message that opened with “a very happy Thanksgiving” and was posted after 11pm on Thursday, the US president said his administration would “end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens” and expel “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States”.
It was not immediately clear how such a broad “pause” on migration could be implemented. Previous efforts by his administration to restrict entry have repeatedly run into legal and congressional obstacles.
Earlier on Thursday evening, Trump announced the death of Sarah Beckstrom, one of two national guard members shot near the White House on Wednesday. Authorities say they suspect the attacker was Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the US in September 2021 through a Biden-era evacuation and resettlement programme for tens of thousands of Afghans following the chaotic US withdrawal.
According to Reuters, Lakanwal was granted asylum in April this year, during Trump’s second term, and on Thursday the CIA confirmed that he had worked alongside US-backed military units during the war in Afghanistan.
Lakanwal was wounded during the incident and remains in custody. The second guard member, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, is still in critical condition, Trump said.
The president’s late-night post appeared to mark a further escalation in the already aggressive anti-immigration stance of his second term, which has been defined by large-scale deportation efforts.
In his extended Truth Social message, Trump did not specify which countries would be affected or define what he meant by “third-world”. Instead, he used fiery anti-immigrant language, blaming migrants and refugees – without presenting evidence – for high crime levels and the growing US deficit.
He also took aim at Somali communities in Minnesota, repeating a pledge made last week to end temporary protected status for Somali nationals living in the state.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump said the Washington DC shooting “reminds us that we have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country.”
Within a day of the attack, the president and his senior officials had rolled out a series of sweeping immigration measures. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it was indefinitely suspending the processing of immigration applications involving Afghan nationals while it conducts a review.
Later, the Department of Homeland Security said the administration was extending that scrutiny to cover all asylum approvals granted under the Biden administration. The department did not clarify whether the reassessment would focus solely on Afghan cases or include applicants from other nations.
USCIS director Joseph Edlow said in a statement that, at Trump’s direction, he was ordering a “full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern”.
Edlow did not list which countries fall under that label. USCIS instead referred to a travel ban imposed by Trump in June on citizens of 19 nations, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Laos, Togo, Venezuela, Sierra Leone and Turkmenistan.
A similar travel ban introduced in 2017 during Trump’s first term drew widespread condemnation and triggered a series of legal challenges when the administration attempted to implement it immediately. The policy was subsequently revised after lengthy court battles, then revoked by Joe Biden in 2021.
National guard troops have been deployed throughout Washington DC since August, when the Trump administration declared a “crime emergency” and ordered them to assist federal and local law enforcement agencies.
Shortly after Wednesday’s shooting, Trump said he would send an additional 500 national guard members to the capital.
A federal judge last week ordered that the national guard deployment must end, but paused the ruling for 21 days, giving the Trump administration time to either withdraw the troops or appeal the decision.
