Unlimited Suspension of Afghan Immigration Requests After Washington Shooting

After Afghan National, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, shot and killed two National Guard members in Washington D.C. on Nov. 26, the Trump administration has responded by suspending all immigration applications from Afghanistan indefinitely.

In addition to this, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Director (USCIS), Joseph Edlow, stated on X that he has “directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”

The countries of concern Edlow is referring to are Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. These countries were put on a travel ban in June 4, as part of Proclamation 10949 which restricted people from travelling to and from these countries.

These changes will likely affect immigrants and those who are looking at entering into the country. USCIS will now consider people from these 19 countries “as significant negative factors in the adjudication of discretionary benefit requests.” Discretionary benefit requests relate to things such as adjustment to status applications, extension of nonimmigrant and change of nonimmigrant status. Additionally, insufficient vetting and information from applicants that limit’s USCIS’s ability to assess the risk by people from these 19 countries will be considered negatively. 

Policies within PP 10949 are applied to people who are outside the U.S. on or after June 9, 2025 and who do not have a valid visa.

Lakanwal is one of 190,000 Afghans who came into the United States through the Biden Administration’s Operation Allies Welcome. He entered the country in 2021 after fleeing Afghanistan when the Taliban took power. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe also stated that Lakanwal worked with the CIA in Afghanistan. Reporting has also stated he was part of one of the “Zero Units”, Kandahar Strike Force (KSF).