More than 1.6 million US green card holders, roughly 12 percent of the total permanent resident population, were born in the countries listed, according to the latest immigration data available on the agency’s “Eligible to Naturalize Dashboard” analyzed by AFP.
Afghanistan, which has over 116,000 green card holders, is also affected by a total halt of immigration application processing, ordered by the Trump administration after the shooting.
CIA director John Ratcliffe said the suspect, Lakanwal, had been part of a CIA-backed “partner force” fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
He added that he had been brought to the United States as part of a program to evacuate Afghans who had worked with the agency after the Taliban toppled the American-backed government in 2021.
Lakanwal had been living in the western state of Washington with his family and had driven across the country to the capital, officials said.
The heads of the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security and other senior Trump appointees all insisted that Lakanwal had been granted unvetted access to the US because of lax asylum policies in the wake of the chaotic final US withdrawal from Afghanistan under former president Biden.
However, AfghanEvac, a group that helped resettle Afghans in the US after the military withdrawal, said they had undergone “some of the most extensive security vetting” of any migrants. It said Lakanwal applied for asylum under Biden but received it later, under Trump.
“This individual’s isolated and violent act should not be used as an excuse to define or diminish an entire community,” AfghanEvac wrote on the platform X, drawing a barrage of hateful comments.
Source: CNA
