Trump ramps up immigration crackdown after shooting

President Trump’s threats to crack down on immigration are leaving migrants bracing as the administration said it will close the door on many legal pathways to the U.S. following a shooting that killed a National Guard member. Since the Wednesday shooting killed 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, Trump and his Cabinet members have proposed a dizzying number of reforms as part of a Thanksgiving pledge to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries.” The Trump administration has paused all pending asylum applications for those from across the globe seeking refuge in the U.S. And for those from the 19 countries already covered by the travel ban, Trump has said he would pause review of their immigration cases, threatening also to revoke their green cards. He also said the U.S. would not issue any visas to citizens of Afghanistan, the home country of shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested the policies could stretch even further, threatening action “on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches and entitlement junkies” in a remark that sparked concern the Trump administration could expand its existing travel ban. To immigration advocates, the shooting has become cover to carry out drastic immigration moves that were likely already eyed by the administration. “You have to take a broader view that this is a president that has a documented history of using tragedies, using external developments, using things like the pandemic as pretext to pursue specific ends when it comes to immigration,” said Jorge Loweree, managing director at the American Immigration Council. “What happened is an absolute tragedy, and we need to do everything we can to prevent that sort of thing from happening. But there’s very clearly a much broader goal here, which is to severely reduce legal immigration to the U.S. by whatever means possible.” Others lamented that the actions of one person have become the basis for a series of immigration actions that will have far-reaching consequences. “They are going after not only all Afghans, but also it’s expanded to all people applying for asylum, all individuals who are from countries that are on the travel ban list, and they’re even looking toward expanding the travel ban as well,” said Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, noting that the Trump administration initially considered 36 countries for the travel ban. “They’re just going taking this one very tragic incident and expanding it … just using it as an excuse to do what they’ve always intended to do and go after individuals from, as the president said, Third World countries.” Trump on Thanksgiving said the moves were needed to “allow the U.S. system to fully recover …and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL,” he wrote on Truth Social. All the measures proposed by Trump would target legal immigrants to the United States. The day before the shooting was carried out, the Trump administration announced it would review all refugee admissions that were issued under the Biden administration, some 200,000 people over four years. The directive was seen by some as specifically targeting the roughly 80,000 Afghan citizens who fled the country amid the fallout from the U.S. withdrawal in 2021 and were evaluated by the Biden administration. Lakanwal, who served in a CIA-backed counter-terrorism unit during the war, came to the U.S. under Biden but was approved for asylum under the Trump administration. He was vetted by counterterrorism authorities and had received what is known as chief-of-mission approval, verifying his work for U.S. forces as part of the process to gain a green card. “This guy was vetted by both the Biden and Trump administrations, and that’s not the issue here, the vetting. Nothing failed with the vetting,” said Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, who said the resulting immigration moves amount to collective punishment. “[It’s a] colossal waste of resources. Refugees are already vetted to the fullest extent before they get here, and every person who’s a non-citizen or in a temporary status here is continually vetted when they’re here.” Dalal-Dheini said the result of putting so many immigration applications on pause actually jeopardizes safety. “They’re putting all these hundreds of thousands of people in limbo because of the action of one person, and that doesn’t do anything to improve our national security,” she said. “If they just stop vetting these people to stop adjudicating their cases, people who are a national security threat may not be discovered. If they’re delaying these cases, if they’re spending all this time to re-examine individuals who have already been vetted — so refugees or green card holders — you’re now taking away resources for the adjudicators to be able to actually adjudicate new cases of people who have not been vetted before,” she said. “This, in fact, is probably going to harm our national security more than improve it.” Trump at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday forecast some future immigration moves, saying officials were preparing for a wave of new enforcement efforts, including one targeting Somali immigrants in Minneapolis. “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said of Somalians. Somalia is already included on the existing travel ban list, as is Afghanistan, while Burundi, Chad, Cuba, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Myanmar, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen fill out the rest of the list. Trump’s comments about stopping migration from “all Third World countries” also raised questions about what countries might be included. “There are a number of countries, some very, very large countries, who, depending on how you define a developing nation, or, as the president says, a Third World country, could be on that list, including, potentially, a country like India,” Loweree said. But he sees a larger trend from Trump’s immigration moves, as further narrowing of immigration pathways to various countries inevitably stops people from coming to the U.S. “The president’s intent on targeting a broad sort of swath of the world when it comes to the narrowing of our immigration system,” Loweree said. “All of these different changes, some of them may be relatively small, but when you add them together, they create many different layers that prevent specific populations of people from being able to navigate the system, and therefore shut them out entirely,” he said. “That is the goal, targeting specific people that the administration deems to be undesirable and cutting them out of the system.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.