US toughens immigration policies after National Guard shooting

Chris Johnson, CQ-Roll Call on Dec 1, 2025

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The Trump administration moved to restrict immigration after an Afghan national shot two members of the National Guard deployed in the District of Columbia last week, killing one and critically injuring the other.

The government put an immediate pause on all asylum decisions, halted visas for individuals traveling from Afghanistan and said it would reexamine green card holders from 19 “high-risk countries of concern.”

The shooting also prompted President Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security to float broader but less specific actions to restrict immigration and remove immigrants from the United States, including a stop to migration from “third-world countries,” the denaturalization of immigrants and a vision for “remigration.”

Trump administration officials announced the policy changes on social media after the Nov. 26 shooting. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, has been in critical condition with no updates as of Monday morning.

The shooter was among the 76,000 individuals from Afghanistan the Biden administration admitted in 2021 after the U.S withdrawal from the country, according to multiple media reports.

Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, posted on Nov. 28 that all asylum decisions would be put on hold, with no time given for when those processes would resume.

“USCIS has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible,” Edlow said. “The safety of the American people always comes first.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a similar message on protecting Americans in his announcement Nov. 28 that he would halt visas for people seeking to travel into the country from Afghanistan.

“President Trump’s State Department has paused visa issuance for ALL individuals traveling on Afghan passports,” Rubio said. “The United States has no higher priority than protecting our nation and our people.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem echoed the announcement asylum decisions would be put on hold, and announced DHS would engage in “a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from all 19 high-risk countries of concern.”

“Under President Trump, we are putting the American people, our safety and national security FIRST,” Noem wrote Sunday on social media. “We are putting an end to idiotic policies that allowed millions of illegal aliens and hundreds of thousands of foreigners into our country unvetted.”

A DHS spokesperson confirmed on Monday that those countries are Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Chad, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Yemen.

Those are the same countries listed in a travel ban Trump issued in a presidential proclamation in June. A DHS memo dated Nov. 27 points to that proclamation and states the administration “will consider relevant country-specific facts and circumstances” when determining “discretionary benefit requests” from individuals from these countries.

These benefits, the memo states, include “certain adjustment of status applications, extension of nonimmigrant stay, and change of nonimmigrant status.”

Trump, speaking with reporters Sunday on Air Force One, said he would make sweeping changes such as a permanent pause on migration from all “third-world countries” and an effort to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility.”

Trump said he would “absolutely” revoke the U.S. citizenship of certain immigrants if he had the authority to make the call.

“We have criminals that came into our country, and they were naturalized,” Trump said. “If I have the power to do it — I’m not sure that I do, but if I do — I would denaturalize. Absolutely.”

And Trump posted on social media Thursday he would “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump posted.

The DHS social media account on Friday posted about “remigration,” something it had also posted about in October along with a link to a mobile app the Trump administration has repurposed as a way for migrants to voluntarily self-deport.

The term has been used in connection with far-right groups in Europe as a concept for deporting the influx of non-white immigrants, some critics have pointed out.

“The stakes have never been higher, and the goal has never been more clear: Remigration now,” the DHS account posted.

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