(NewsNation) — The Trump administration is reexamining the U.S. immigration process after two West Virginia National Guard members were shot in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
FBI agents named Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, as the suspect in the shooting, which left one Guard member dead and the other in critical condition. Officials said Lakanwal worked with the CIA in his native country before immigrating to the U.S. in 2021. He entered the country under Operation Allies Welcome during the Biden administration and later applied for asylum, which was granted by the Trump administration.
Shawn VanDiver is the president of Afghan Evac, which works to resettle people from Afghanistan. After President Donald Trump vowed Thursday to “permanently pause” migration from developing nations in response to the shooting, VanDiver told “Morning in America” that Americans shouldn’t “vilify” all Afghans.
“We can’t let the actions of one deranged individual totally vilify an entire population,” he said.
VanDiver said the perpetrator in the D.C. shooting should be held accountable, but he’s concerned about the effect the administration’s response will have on other Afghans trying to resettle in the U.S., including those who served alongside U.S. troops.
“I thought that the President and the Vice President and the FBI directors and others might try to use this as a political cudgel to do things that they were already planning to do, and that’s exactly what we saw,” VanDiver said.
He said that since Trump took office in January, the administration has drastically cut down the number of Afghans entering the U.S.
“Before President Trump took office, we had 5,000 Afghans a month, leaving Kabul going to a third country, processing through the safest, most secure immigration pathway our country has ever seen, called Enduring Welcome,” VanDiver said, referencing the successor of Operation Allies Welcome. “On Jan. 20, in the evening, President Trump signed executive orders that shut that all down, and that was the beginning of a slow downward, sort of a rapid downward slide for Afghan evac and lots of other organizations.”
As the investigation into the shooting continues, VanDiver said questions remain around how Lakanwal’s immigration case was handled. He added that Lakanwal never interacted with Afghan Evac.
“The Trump administration would have vetted him when President Trump approved his asylum in April 2025. Now we are very confused about how, if he vetted clear all through that, how he wasn’t caught once he radicalized,” VanDiver said.