Kochi: The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has halted all asylum decisions in the wake of an Afghan suspect shooting to death one of two National Guard soldiers and critically injuring the other in Washington DC, BBC reported.
The decision is taken on the basis of the Trump administration suspending the process granting asylum until every alien
is screened thoroughly.
President Donald Trump has pledged to “permanently pause migration” to the US from all “third world countries”.
A US National Guard member was killed in a firing on Wednesday’s shooting which is blamed on an Afghan national.
Among other moves, Trump has sought to enact mass deportations of migrants who have entered the US illegally and to end automatic citizenship rights that currently apply to nearly anyone born on US territory.
The USCIS said it would re-examine green cards issued to individuals who had migrated to the US from 19 countries.
USCIS is targeting countries like Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia and Venezuela.
The president had already imposed a travel ban on nationals of Afghanistan – and 11 other countries, primarily in Africa and Asia – earlier this year. Another travel ban targeting a number of majority-Muslim countries was enacted during his first term.
“The Trump response amounted to a “scapegoating” of migrants in the US, argued Jeremy McKinney, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The suspect in the Washington DC shooting, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, had come to the US in 2021.
He travelled under a programme that offered special immigration protections to Afghans who had worked with US forces in the wake of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Photo: X
