President Trump has said he will “permanently pause” immigration from third-world countries after an Afghan man allegedly shot two members of the National Guard close to the White House.
The president said he would overturn the immigration status of “millions” of people who came to the United States under Joe Biden and said he would end migration from developing countries.
He said he would deport anyone with views “non-compatible with Western civilisation” and that most of the 53 million immigrants in the US came from “failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs or drug cartels”.
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In a lengthy post on Truth Social, he wrote: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover.”
Trump’s statement was made after an attack on the eve of Thanksgiving outside a metro station in downtown Washington.
Two members of the National Guard from West Virginia were shot at point-blank range as they were patrolling near Farragut West station. One of the victims, Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her wounds, while the other, Andrew Wolfe, 24, is in a critical condition in hospital.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, who worked for a CIA-backed paramilitary in Afghanistan before emigrating to the US in 2021, will be charged with murder, officials announced.
• Who is Rahmanullah Lakanwal? The suspect in Washington shooting
In June, Trump banned citizens of 12 countries — Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen — from travelling to the US. He also placed restrictions on people coming from seven more countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The tightening of border restrictions was widely compared to the “Muslim ban” of Trump’s first administration, when citizens of similar countries were blocked from entering the US.
After the Washington shooting, Trump also ordered a review of all people holding a US green card from these 19 countries. He said the number of refugees in the US was leading to “social dysfunction”.
President Trump ordered an additional 500 troops to be deployed to Washington after the shooting
ALEX WROBLEWSKI/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
The president singled out the Somali community in Minnesota as an example of a badly integrated community.
“Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota,” he said. “Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for “prey” as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone.”
The figures quoted by Trump appeared to be an exaggeration as there are about 80,000 Somalis living in Minnesota, according to the research group Minnesota Compass. That would represent about 1.4 per cent of the state’s overall population.
Trump specifically attacked Ilhan Omar, the left-wing Democratic congresswoman from Minneapolis who was born in Somalia.
He said Omar, 43, who often wears religious clothing, was “always wrapped in her swaddling hijab” and repeated a conspiracy theory about the Democrat once being married to her brother.
Omar has previously called Trump “racist” and suggested he is illiterate.