Trump pushes for more restrictions on Afghan refugees. Experts say many are already in place

The Trump administration is promising an even tougher anti-immigration agenda after an Afghan national was charged this week in the shooting of two National Guard members, with new restrictions targeting the tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the U.S. and those seeking to come, many of whom served alongside American soldiers in the two-decade war.

But those still waiting to come were already facing stricter measures as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on legal and illegal migration that began when he started his second term in January. And the Afghan immigrants living in the U.S. and now in the administration’s crosshairs were among the most extensively vetted, often undergoing years of security screening, experts and advocates say.

The suspected shooter, who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War, “was vetted both before he landed, probably once he landed, once he applied for asylum,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “But more importantly, he was almost certainly vetted extensively and much more by the CIA.”

Haris Tarin, a former U.S. official who worked on the Biden-era program that resettled Afghans, predicted that “as the investigation unfolds, you will see that this is not a failure of screening. This is a failure of us not being able to integrate — not just foreign intelligence and military personnel — but our own veterans, over the past 25 years.”

The program Operations Allies Welcome initially brought roughly 76,000 Afghans to the United States, many of whom had worked alongside American troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. The initiative was in place for around one year before shifting to a longer-term program called Operation Enduring Welcome. Almost 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S. under both programs.

Among those brought to the U.S. under the program was the alleged shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who now faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 20-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. The other National Guard member who was shot, 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition.

Those resettlements are now on hold. The State Department has temporarily stopped issuing visas for all people traveling on Afghan passports, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced late Friday on X.

The shooting sparks anti-immigrant rhetoric

Trump and his allies have seized on the shooting to criticize gaps in the U.S. vetting process and the speed of admissions, even though some Republicans spent the months and years after the 2021 withdrawal criticizing the Biden administration for not moving fast enough to approve some applications from Afghan allies.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal “should have never been allowed to come here,” Trump called lax migration policies “the single greatest national security threat facing our nation,” and Vice President JD Vance said Biden’s policy was “opening the floodgate to unvetted Afghan refugees.”

That rhetoric quickly turned into policy announcements, with Trump saying he would “permanently pause all migration” from a list of nearly 20 countries, “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” Many of these changes had already been set in motion through a series of executive orders over the past 10 months, including most recently in June.

“They are highlighting practices that were already going into place,” said Andrea Flores, a lawyer who was an immigration policy adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations.

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, and his request was approved in April of this year after undergoing a thorough vetting, according to #AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the war.

Flores said the system has worked across administrations: “You may hear people say, ‘Well, he was granted asylum under Trump. This is Trump’s problem.’ That’s not how our immigration system works. It relies on the same bedding. No asylum laws have really been changed by Congress.”

Afghans in the US fearful for their status

Trump and other U.S. officials have used the attack to demand a re-examination for everyone who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan, a country he called “a hellhole on Earth” on Thursday.

“These policies were already creating widespread disruption and fear among lawfully admitted families. What’s new and deeply troubling is the attempt to retroactively tie all of this to one act of violence in a way that casts suspicion on entire nationalities, including Afghan allies who risked their lives to protect our troops,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said in a statement Friday.

This has left the nearly 200,000 Afghans who are currently living across the U.S. in deep fear and shame over the actions of one person in their community. Those in the U.S. are now worrying about their legal status being revoked, while others in the immigration pipeline here and abroad are waiting in limbo.

Nesar, a 22-year-old Afghan who arrived in America weeks after the fall of Kabul, said he had just begun to assimilate into life in the U.S. when the attack happened on Wednesday. He agreed to speak to the AP on condition that only his first name be used for fear of reprisals or targeting by immigration officials.

“Life was finally getting easier for me. I’ve learned to speak English. I found a better job,” he said. “But after this happened two days ago, I honestly went to the grocery store this morning, and I was feeling so uncomfortable among all of those people. I was like, maybe they’re now looking at me the same way as the shooter.”

Two days before the shooting, Nesar and his father, who worked for the Afghan president during the war, had received an interview date of Dec. 13 for their green card application, a moment he said they had been working toward for four years. However, he says it is now unclear if their application will move forward or if their interview will take place.

Another Afghan national, who also spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said that after fearing for his life under Taliban rule, he felt a sense of peace and hope when he finally received a special immigrant visa to come to the U.S. two years ago.

He said he thought he could use his experience working as a defense attorney in Afghanistan to contribute to American society. But now, he says the actions of an “extremist who, despite benefiting from the safety and livelihood provided by this country, ungratefully attacked two American soldiers,” he and other Afghans will once again face scrutiny.

“It seems that whenever a terrorist commits a crime, its shadow falls upon me simply because I am from Afghanistan,” he added.

___

Associated Press writer Renata Brito contributed to this report from Barcelona, Spain.