 "US pauses visas for Afghan passport holders after Washington shooting")
The US State Department has paused issuing visas to people with Afghan passports, a day after one National Guard soldier died in a shooting in Washington DC.
“The Department of State has IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports. The Department is taking all necessary steps to protect U.S. national security and public safety,” the State Department said in a post on X.
The Trump administration has widened its crackdown on migrants in the US after the Washington shooter was identified as an Afghan national.
US goes after migrants
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would “permanently pause” immigration from what he described as “third-world countries” and called for a policy of “reverse migration,” escalating his rhetoric following the National Guard shooting in Washington, DC.
In a lengthy Thanksgiving night social media post, Trump offered few specifics while criticising migrants and pledging to remove millions of people living in the U.S. His comments came hours after he confirmed the death of 20-year-old National Guard soldier Sarah Beckstrom in the shooting.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States,” Trump said.
The US government has also announced that it would re-examine green card holders issued to people who came to the US from 19 specific countries.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) chief Joseph Edlow said that President Donald Trump has instructed the agency to conduct “a full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern”.
USCIS has also suspended all immigration requests from Afghan nationals indefinitely.
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View AllTrump has labelled the Washington as an “act of terror”, saying that the suspect who shot the National Guard soldier was from “hellhole Afghanistan”.
UN urges US to keep door open
UN agencies on Friday appealed to Washington to continue allowing asylum seekers access to the country and to be given due process after Trump vowed to freeze migration from “Third World” countries.
Asked to respond to Trump’s remarks, UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing: “They are entitled to protection under international law, and that should be given due process.”
UN refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun echoed those remarks.
“When people who need protection arrive in their territory, they have to have a due process of asylum. And then they have to have access to territory,” she said, adding that the overwhelming majority of refugees are law-abiding members of the host community.
“So we really want to appeal at this point to the states who are hosting refugees and asylum seekers,” she said.
With inputs from agencies
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