In wake of DC shooting, Trump admin to re-examine Green Card holders from ‘countries of concern’

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON: (Nov 28) The Trump administration has said it will conduct a “rigorous” re-examination of all Green Cards issued to immigrants from “every country of concern” in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard service members by an Afghan national.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow said that President Donald Trump has "directed a full scale, rigorous re-examination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern”.

“The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies,” Edlow said in a post on X.

The policy guidance is effective immediately and applies to requests pending or filed on or after November 27, 2025.

In a statement, the USCIS said that in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard service members in Washington DC on Wednesday by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the agency has issued new guidance allowing for “negative, country-specific factors” to be considered when vetting aliens from 19 high-risk countries.

These countries are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Burundi, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen.

These are the same countries that were subject to a travel ban announced by Trump in a proclamation issued in June this year.

The proclamation ‘Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats' restricted and limited the entry of nationals of these into the US and applied to both immigrants and non-immigrants.

The new guidance came in the wake of the tragic shooting of US Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and US Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.

Trump announced on Thursday during a call with service members on Thanksgiving that Beckstrom had died of her injuries. Wolfe remained in critical condition.

Lakanwal, 29, had arrived in the US through a Biden-era immigration programme called ‘Operation Allies Welcome’ for Afghan nationals fleeing their country after the August 2021 Taliban takeover.

The USCIS said that its new guidance comes after the Trump administration halted refugee resettlement from Afghanistan and the entry of Afghan nationals in its first year of office.