DC shooting: US to review Green Card holders from nations of ‘concern’
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New York/Washington: 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, PTI reported.
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, the 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 countries 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.