US freezes Afghan immigration requests; Trump calls accused ‘a foreigner from a hellhole’

By Anjali Sharma

WASHINGTON – US administration on Thursday has halted all Afghan immigration requests after an attack on National Guard members near the White House.

President Donald Trump condemned the incident as an “act of terror” and referred to the suspect as a foreigner “from a hellhole”, as he ordered a review of Afghan entrants under earlier programmes

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has put an immediate stop to all immigration applications from Afghan nationals after a shooting incident involved National Guard personnel in Washington, less than 500 metres from the White House.

The agency announced in a post on X “Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”

USCIS said its decision was rooted in national security priorities, added “The protections and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission.”

Trump condemned the assault in sharp terms.

“This heinous assault was an act of evil and an act of hatred, and an act of terror. It was a crime against our entire nation. It was a crime against humanity,” he said during a televised address on Wednesday evening.

He said the individual taken into custody was “a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on earth”, blamed the previous Biden administration for approving the suspect.

Trump also signaled a broad reassessment of immigration files linked to Afghanistan.

“We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country if they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” he said.

He announced the deployment of an additional 500 federal troops to bolster security in Washington.

FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters that the case falls under federal jurisdiction.

He said the attack amounted to “an assault on federal law enforcement officers” and would therefore be prosecuted at the federal level.

National Guard soldiers from multiple states have been stationed in the US capital for several months as part of Trump’s public-safety initiative, which has since spread to other major American cities.

Washington hosts 2,400 Guard members, including 958 from the DC National Guard and around 1,300 deployed from 8 different states.

Trump was not in Washington when the shooting occurred and was in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday as per media reports.