The Trump administration has halted all decisions regarding migrants seeking asylum in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard members, allegedly by an Afghan national who was granted asylum earlier this year.
Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph B. Edlow wrote on X Friday evening, “USCIS has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible. The safety of the American people always comes first.”
A notice sent to asylum officers explicitly tells them not to enter “any decision information for affirmative cases.”
Applications in “defensive” cases are filed by immigrants facing deportation and are decided by immigration judges under the direction of the Department of Justice.
The man suspected of shooting two West Virginia National Guard members, one fatally, likely underwent extensive vetting as a CIA asset and again as he sought asylum in the United States.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Rahmanullah Lakanwal worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, which almost certainly would have required extensive vetting.
He was also likely vetted when he received asylum under Trump earlier this year.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI director Kash Patel have both suggested in recent congressional testimony that the administration had carefully scrutinized thousands of Afghan refugees.
“During my tenure, we are going through the databases to make sure that no known or suspected terrorists enter this country to harm our nation,” Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
Trump administration officials now appear to be walking that back.
U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro disputed the idea that he had received any vetting at all in an interview with Fox News on Friday morning.
Pirro also said Lakanwal will face a first-degree murder charge after National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom died from her injuries. The other guardsman who was shot, Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, claimed that Lakanwal was only “vetted” by the intelligence community “to serve as a soldier” but not for “his suitability to come to America and live among us as a neighbor, integrate into our communities, or eventually become an American citizen.”
This is a developing story…
