CRACKING down on immigration — legal and illegal — has long been a top policy agenda for Donald Trump, and the recent shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan suspect has given the American president the opportunity to forge ahead with these aims. One of the Guard troopers has succumbed to her injuries. But while the US leader may be breathing fire against immigrants, the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is no ordinary migrant. He was a CIA asset in Afghanistan, working in an Afghan special ops unit before the Taliban takeover, and arrived in the US in 2021. His motives remain unclear, though some social media accounts suggest his brother was an IS militant, a group Lakanwal fought while working with the Americans. While the suspect, if found guilty, and any facilitators, must face the law, it would be wrong to tar all Afghans and all immigrants with the same brush.

But Mr Trump has already made up his mind. All asylum applications have been halted, while the US president has said there will be a “permanent pause” to migration from “third world countries”. He has also ordered the re-examination of green cards issued to immigrants from 19 countries. Pakistan is not on this list. Mr Trump has said he wants to keep out “migrants who undermine domestic tranquillity … [and are] non-compatible with Western Civilisation”. While every country has a right to protect its borders and take measures for internal security, the Trumpian crackdown on migrants is likely influenced by rising far-right calls across the Western world that accuse immigrants of being at the root of all problems. Where Afghans are concerned, the US and its Western partners have a duty to take in, after vetting, the individuals that worked with them in Afghanistan. As for other intending immigrants from the Global South, the gates to ‘promised lands’ in the West appear to be closing.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2025