President Donald Trump has announced that his administration will “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries,” in a sweeping and controversial order. The abrupt declaration came in a dramatic late-night post on his social media platform following a fatal shooting near the White House that left one of his own troops dead.
In the post, Trump said the move was necessary to allow the U.S. immigration system to “fully recover.” He called for the termination of what he described as “millions of Biden illegal admissions,” including those he said were signed by “autopen,” and vowed to remove from the country anyone deemed “not a net asset to the United States.” The president also pledged to end federal benefits for non-citizens, to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility,” and to deport any foreign national deemed a public charge, security risk, or “non-compatible with Western civilization.”
The declaration came a day after an Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was accused of fatally shooting a 20-year-old soldier from the West Virginia National Guard, and critically wounding another near Washington, D.C. Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 under the resettlement programme known as Operation Allies Welcome and was later granted asylum.
In response to the attack, the administration has already implemented immediate changes. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) halted indefinitely all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals. The administration also ordered what was described as a “full-scale, rigorous re-examination” of existing green-card holders from a group of 19 “countries of concern.”