The rape of a 15-year-old girl in the U.K. by two teenage Afghan asylum-seekers has triggered a wave of anger among American commentators, particularly on social media.
Jan Jahanzeb and Israr Niazal received custodial sentences at Warwick Crown Court on Monday after a judge found they raped a 15-year-old girl in Leamington Spa, a town in central England, on May 10.
Jahanzeb, who arrived in the U.K. in January this year, and Niazal, who came in November 2024, had both previously pleaded guilty to rape.
U.S.-based commentators, reacting on X, condemned the assault and used it to call for tougher migration and asylum policies.
Why It Matters
The case comes amid heightened scrutiny of Afghan nationals in the United States following the arrest of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national charged with murder after two National Guard soldiers were shot in Washington, D.C., in November.
In a video statement released by the White House on X, President Donald Trump said: “The suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on earth. He was floated by the Biden administration in September 2021 for those infamous flights that everybody was talking about.”
D.C. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed and Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically injured in the shootings. Both had been deployed to Washington, D.C., as part of an ongoing federal mission the Trump administration says is aimed at addressing crime.
The administration has since argued that the U.S. should reexamine Afghans who entered the country in recent years and has halted the processing of new immigration requests from Afghan nationals, prompting concerns about broad stigmatization of an entire group over individual criminal cases.
What To Know
On X, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacted to a post about the Leamington Spa rape case by writing: “A government that fails to protect its citizens is illegitimate.”
An account called God & Country, which has more than 59,000 followers and describes itself as “American Patriot,” shared an image stating: “Remove all their benefits they will deport themselves.”
Gunther Eagleman, a prominent MAGA-aligned account with 1.6 million followers, wrote: “We need to deport them as well.”
The American anti-immigration group Immigration Accountability Project commented: “Exactly why America needs to pass an immigration moratorium.”
The convictions also follow recent remarks by President Trump in an interview with Politoco, in which he described Europe as a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” leaders. He argued that U.S. allies had failed both to control migration and to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end.
What People Are Saying
Judge Sylvia De Bertodano told the court: “What you two did on that evening changed [the victim’s] life for ever.”
In a statement read on the victim’s behalf, she said: “The day I was raped changed me as a person. Every time I go out I don’t feel safe. So much so that I’ve started to avoid it altogether. This has also impacted my education and school life at the worst possible time.”
Her mother, in a separate statement, said: “We have watched our vibrant, happy and confident daughter shrink down and suffer with anxiety so bad, she is often physically sick.”
What Happens Next
Both Jahanzeb and Niazal have been ordered to register as sex offenders and face possible deportation.
Jahanzeb was served deportation papers and sentenced to 10 years and eight months in youth detention. Niazal received a sentence of nine years and 10 months, and the judge invited the government to consider recommending his deportation as well.
