A Deadly Attack Sparks Broad Punishment for Innocent Afghans

On November 26, Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal shot two members of the West Virginia National Guard in Washington, D.C. Following the attack, U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstom died of her wounds. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe remains in critical condition.

The attack triggered an immediate and far-reaching crackdown on Afghans living in the U.S. and on Afghan allies abroad.

On November 29, the Trump administration announced it would pause all asylum decisions and halt the issuance of any visas to Afghans “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.” The pause also impacts the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which confers legal permanent residence on Afghans who provided faithful and valuable service to the United States.

The New York Times reported that an email sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on November 29 directed field offices to arrest about 1,860 Afghans with final deportation orders.

On December 1, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced intentions to expand a travel ban already impacting numerous categories of individuals from Afghanistan. In a post on X, Noem said she recommended a “full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

On the same day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the Trump administration would be “actively re-examining” all Afghans who entered the U.S. during the Joe Biden administration.

President Donald Trump has inaccurately claimed that Afghans who arrived in the U.S. as a result of Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) were “unvetted and unchecked.” In fact, the 72,000 Afghans who arrived through OAW were subject to a three-tiered system of vetting that saw them screened and biometrically identified through multiple U.S. agencies at overseas hubs, screened at U.S. airports, and screened once more at the U.S. military bases where Afghans were processed before being placed with resettlement agencies nationwide.

While the administration stokes fear about Afghan immigrants, data paint another picture. A 2019 study from the Cato Institute showed that the incarceration rate for Afghans between 18 and 54 was 127 per 100,000, a stark comparison to the 1,477 per 100,000 for native-born Americans.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reported that, according to a 2024 Department of Health and Human Services study, refugees brought a $123.8 billion net fiscal benefit to the U.S. between 2005 and 2019, contributing $581 billion in taxes while receiving $457.1 billion in government support. This combats the Trump administration’s objections based on the net cost of admitting refugees to the U.S.

While refugees’ earnings may be limited on arrival, IRC says they “increase significantly” with time. A median household income of $30,500 in a refugee’s first five years in the U.S. becomes a median income of $71,400 after being here for 20 years. That number exceeds the national median income by nearly $4,000.

IRC also reported that more refugees become entrepreneurs (13 percent) than their U.S.-born counterparts (9 percent), benefitting their communities.

While recent policy shifts represent a clear escalation of rhetoric, the Trump administration has used policy to target Afghans since the first day of the president’s second term. On January 20, Trump passed a series of executive orders that suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), leaving about 85,000 Afghans stuck in limbo, and ceased all foreign assistance. On January 24, a State Department stop-work order ended all funds for resettlement and placement efforts.

The situation declined further for these refugees. Those who were paroled into the country by way of claiming asylum at the southern border received notice in April that their parole had been revoked. While many impacted Afghans faced no consequences from losing status, Reason has told the stories of a number of Afghans who were arrested after losing parole or while in the midst of seeking asylum and face the threat of deportation. In July, Temporary Protected Status was stripped from Afghans based on alleged improvements in the economic and security situation inside Afghanistan. 

Afghans who entered the country during August 2021 via airlift following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan are likewise endangered. They received two years of humanitarian parole upon arrival as protection. Under the Biden administration, parole was extended for an additional two years in 2023. When parole lapsed in 2025, it was never renewed—leaving Afghans who haven’t yet been granted asylum or an SIV both without lawful status and without work authorization. It’s worth noting that there is a backlog of about 1.5 million asylum cases in the U.S.

Movement for SIV applicants was no longer funded by the U.S. government following Trump’s funding freeze, but nonprofit organizations filled the funding gap, with No One Left Behind alone raising enough funds to cover flights for more than 3,000 Afghans between February and October. Though the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration had resumed providing SIV flights by November, the future of the program is on shaky ground with the Trump administration now cancelling all visa issuance.

With USRAP still suspended, many eligible Afghans remain stranded, leaving the special operations partners, legal personnel, and human rights defenders who qualified for the program to face an aggressive deportation campaign inside Pakistan (where many Afghans are waiting for approval to travel to the U.S.) and ongoing Taliban reprisal killings in Afghanistan. All hope of the USRAP resuming fled when the Trump administration announced on September 30 that it intended to process just 7,500 refugees through the USRAP during FY 2026, with none of those placements held for Afghans.

After the horrible attack on the National Guardsmen, the administration turned its attention to refugees already vetted and making homes in U.S. cities. On November 24—notably before the attack in D.C.—a leaked memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ director Joe Edlow announced a “comprehensive review and a re-interview of all refugees admitted from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025.” The memo noted that any refugees who did not meet refugee criteria would have their status terminated. 

The Trump administration’s policy shift comes after three and a half years of the Biden administration stalling on processing allies. As our allies have been in a near-constant state of flux since August 2021, a host of nonprofits and volunteer organizations have stepped up to ensure that the adjustment process for Afghans is supportive and streamlined.

Afghans who resettled in the U.S. following the withdrawal were eligible for benefits to help them restart their lives in a new country, yet their difficulties have persisted. Many have lacked the required licensing to continue jobs they held in Afghanistan, forcing them to pivot to new careers. Still, resettlement agencies say that most Afghans became self-sufficient within months of arrival—a testament to the perseverance in the Afghan community despite their country’s collapse, the chaotic withdrawal, and the uncertainty they met when processed on U.S. bases. 

 In 2010, a friend’s father introduced a group of my college classmates to his Afghan interpreter, whom I will call Zia. His wife insisted on cooking for our entire group in their small apartment in Alexandria, Virginia. Though we did not share a common language, we exchanged many smiles while sitting cross-legged on the floor, eating piles of fluffy naan and endless helpings of Kabuli pulao—chunks of rich lamb over saffron rice with raisins and sweetened carrots.

Zia had been a doctor in Afghanistan before volunteering to serve with the Americans as they fought the Taliban. Zia’s high-profile efforts to assist the U.S. during Operation Anaconda had placed him in immediate peril, forcing the U.S. to evacuate him and his family, with no plan in place for providing him with enduring legal status. In Alexandria, Zia was managing the uncertainty of his future while attending medical school and driving a cab whenever he could.

I lost track of Zia after attempting to help him acquire a Green Card, but eventually heard that, after all his efforts, he had received his medical license. 

Leaders are muddying the waters about who our Afghan allies are. Americans shouldn’t accept those blanket claims; they should meet the generous, hardworking people who came here seeking safety and the fulfillment of decades of American promises.