The Afghan man accused of shooting two National Guard members will face first-degree murder charges for an attack that prompted President Donald Trump to declare he would freeze migration from ‘Third World Countries’ to the US.
Attorney for Washington, DC, Jeanine Pirro, said yesterday that there will be other charges as well against 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who she said ambushed the National Guardsmen from West Virginia near the White House on Wednesday.
In a Thanksgiving call with US military service members on Thursday Trump called the shootings a “terrorist attack” and officials have said they were conducting a terrorism probe into Wednesday’s shooting.
“What happened at that crime is unmistakable. It is a premeditated murder,” Pirro told Fox News’ Fox and Friends programme. “We are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree,” she said.
Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her wounds on Thursday. Pirro said that Beckstrom’s fellow Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, 24, was in critical condition.
On his Truth Social platform yesterday, Trump escalated his rhetoric on immigration. Since taking office this year he has stepped up arrests of immigrants in the US illegally, cracked down on unlawful border crossings and stripped legal status from hundreds of thousands of people.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States,” Trump said on Truth Social, referring to his predecessor.
After taking office in 2021, Biden reversed many of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies from his first term, saying they blocked people in need of humanitarian protection and were unfairly discriminatory. Trump did not name any countries.
Asked about “Third World” countries, the US Department of Homeland Security yesterday referred to 19 countries listed in a June travel ban. Earlier, Homeland Security officials had said Trump ordered a widespread review of asylum cases approved under the Biden administration and green cards issued to citizens of the 19 countries, which include Afghanistan.
Lakanwal entered the US in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era immigration programme to resettle thousands of Afghans who helped the US during the war and feared reprisal from Taliban forces who seized control after the US withdrawal.
More than 70,000 Afghans have been resettled in the US under the programme. Officials said Lakanwal was part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan before coming to the US He was granted asylum this year under Trump, according to a US government file on him seen by Reuters. Investigators said Lakanwal drove across the country from his home in the state of Washington and shot the two Guardsmen with a powerful revolver, a .357 Magnum, before being wounded in an exchange of gunfire with other troops.
The shootings may give Trump an opening to argue that even legal pathways like asylum pose security risks for Americans.
Less than 24 hours after the shooting, Trump officials began ordering widespread reviews of immigration policies.
Lakanwal lived in Washington state with his wife and five children, according to investigators. Asked whether he was planning to deport the suspect’s wife and five children who live in Washington state, Trump has said, “We’re looking at the whole situation with family.”
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