President Donald Trump ordered an immediate halt to the processing of visas for Afghan nationals following last week’s targeted attack on National Guard members in Washington, D.C.
The pre-Thanksgiving shooting by an Afghan national allowed into the country under President Joe Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome program prompted sweeping immigration restrictions and reforms by Trump.
The U.S. Department of State issued an alert to all U.S. diplomatic posts on Friday, ordering consular officers to stop immigrant or non-immigrant visa applications from Afghan nationals including applicants for Special Immigrant Visas, Reuters reported.
“The Department of State has IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports,” the agency wrote in an announcement on social media. “The Department is taking all necessary steps to protect U.S. national security and public safety.”
The Department of State has IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports.
The Department is taking all necessary steps to protect U.S. national security and public safety.
— Department of State (@StateDept) November 28, 2025
Trump officials have called Wednesday’s shooting a “terrorist attack” deliberately targeting National Guard troops in the nation’s capital.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national, drove from Washington state to Washington, D.C., and shot two National Guard members a few blocks from the White House. He lived in Bellingham, a coastal city near Canada’s border, with his wife and five children.
“I mean, he went nuts, and that happens. It happens too often with these people,” Trump told reporters from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida following the shooting. “We have a lot of others in this country, and we’re going to get them out, but they go cuckoo.”
Lakanwal was charged with first-degree murder among and other charges related to the attack, which killed one Guard member and critically wounded another. West Virginia National Guard Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom died on Thursday, Nov. 27, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains hospitalized after undergoing surgery.
Lakanwal is a former member of one of Afghanistan’s CIA-backed units that worked with the U.S. military. He came to the United States in 2021 following Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The State Department cable was aimed at “ensuring the applicant’s identity and eligibility for a visa under U.S. law,” officials said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday also shared the bulletin on his X account, explaining that “ALL individuals” traveling on Afghan passports would have their visa issuance “paused.”
“The United States has no higher priority than protecting our nation and our people,” Rubio shared.
President Trump’s State Department has paused visa issuance for ALL individuals traveling on Afghan passports.
The United States has no higher priority than protecting our nation and our people. https://t.co/HuR1Lj7F9t
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) November 28, 2025
Per the cable, consular officers can keep scheduled appointments with Afghan applicants, but they cannot give a visa to applicants. Authorized visas that have not been printed yet should be reversed and canceled, while printed visas should be destroyed and those cases amended in the system, per the State Department.
Rubio’s order effectively suspends the special immigration program for Afghans who helped the United States during its 20-year-long occupation of their home country, Reuters reported.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt weighed in on the situation Saturday, Nov. 29, posting on X: “The magnitude of the national security crisis Joe Biden unleashed on our country over the span of four years cannot be overstated. President Trump has directed his entire team to continue rooting out this evil within our borders.”
The magnitude of the national security crisis Joe Biden unleashed on our country over the span of four years cannot be overstated. President Trump has directed his entire team to continue rooting out this evil within our borders. https://t.co/QdsTLFXauC
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) November 29, 2025
Leavitt reshared a post from Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, announcing that one day before Lakanwal opened fire in Washington, D.C., another Afghan national who was paroled into the United States under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome was arrested for threatening to blow up a building in Fort Worth, Texas.
Just one day before the Terrorist attack against our @NationalGuard, another Afghan national who was paroled into the United States under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome was arrested for threatening to blow up a building in Fort Worth.
Mohammad Dawood Alokozay posted a video… pic.twitter.com/kKg6A2iCLl
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) November 29, 2025
“Mohammad Dawood Alokozay posted a video of himself on TikTok indicating he was building a bomb with an intended target of the Fort Worth area. He was arrested on Tuesday by the Texas Department of Public Safety and FBI JTTF and charged with making Terroristic Threats,” McLaughlin said, adding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also lodged a detainer to keep him in custody.
Even though Lakanwal entered the U.S. under Biden, he was vetted by the CIA in Afghanistan and granted final asylum approval under Trump’s State Department earlier this year, multiple sources told Fox News Digital.
Trump noted last week “when it comes to asylum, when they’re flown in, it’s very hard to get them out. No matter how you want to do it, it’s very hard to get them out. But we’re going to be getting them all out now.”
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services late on Wednesday said that it has stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely.
USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow also announced Thursday that there would be a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination” of every green card issued to immigrants from “every country of concern.”
In another abrupt move, on Friday, Edlow said that the agency has halted all asylum decisions. They will be suspended “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
On Nov. 21 before the shooting occurred, USCIS announced roughly 230,000 refugees admitted into the United States under the Biden administration will face new scrutiny as part of a re-vetting process.
AfghanEvac, a U.S.-based relocation and resettlement nonprofit, said it’s the latest effort by the Trump administration to bar Afghans from entering the United States.
AfghanEvac President Shawn VanDiver said in a statement to Fox News Digital that it is a “violation of federal law.”
“They are using a single violent individual as cover for a policy they have long planned, turning their own intelligence failures into an excuse to punish an entire community and the veterans who served alongside them,” VanDiver said.
VanDiver previously told Reuters that about 200,000 Afghans were resettled in the United States since 2021 through refugee and special visa programs. Applications were still being processed for another 265,000 Afghans outside the United States, including about 180,000 in the Special Immigrant Visa pipeline for those who worked for the U.S. government, he said.
