Donald Trump lashed out at refugees for causing ‘social dysfunction in America’ and vowed to remove ‘anyone who is not a net asset’ to the US
Donald Trump has said the US will “permanently pause” migration from all “Third World Countries” following the death of a National Guard member in a shooting near the White House.
He did not identify the countries he was referring to by name, but the Department of Homeland Security said it was re-examining green cards issued to people from 19 “countries of concern”.
It came after Trump announced the death of Sarah Beckstrom, 20, who was shot along with another National Guard member, Andrew Wolfe, 24, who remains in a critical condition.
Investigators say the shooting was carried out by an Afghan national who entered the US in 2021 under a resettlement programme.
Which countries are being targeted?
Writing about his latest migration crackdown on Truth Social, Trump did not name any of the countries being targeted or explain what he meant by “Third World”.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US 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,” he wrote.
Trump said he would end all federal benefits and subsidies for “non-citizens”, adding that he would “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility” and deport any foreign national deemed a public charge, security risk, or “non-compatible with Western civilization”.
Earlier, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security, said Trump had ordered a “full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern”.
When asked which countries were considered to be “of concern”, USCIS pointed to 19 countries targeted in a previous immigration crackdown announced in June.
They are: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The department has not provided further details about what the re-examination will entail.
USCIS has already stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely, pending a review of “security and vetting protocols”.
Why are they being targeted?
Trump blamed the attack in Washington on the resettlement programme set up by President Joe Biden after the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
“Hundreds of thousands of people poured into our Country totally unvetted and unchecked,” Trump said. “We will fix it, but will never forget what Crooked Joe Biden and his Thugs did to our Country!”
Trump suggested the Afghan resettlement programme was an example of broader failures with US immigration policy that he was seeking to address.
Trump said his administration was aiming to achieve a “major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations”.
Going further, Trump blamed refugees for causing the “social dysfunction in America” and vowed to remove “anyone who is not a net asset” to the US.
The 19 countries targeted are primarily in Africa and the Middle East.
In June, Trump justified their inclusion as a matter of national security, following an attack on Colorado’s Jewish community, which was allegedly carried out by an Egyptian national.
A presidential proclamation gave individual reasons for why restrictions were being applied to each country. In most cases, they were either accused of being linked to terrorism (Iran, Somalia and Libya), or that their citizens tended to overstay visas (Chad, Congo and Equatorial Guinea).
What comes next?
As with previous crackdowns, the restrictions are likely to face challenges in the courts.
The measures announced in June expanded on the travel ban announced by Trump in 2017, during his first term in office. Dubbed the “Muslim ban”, it targeted seven predominantly Muslim countries: Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
It had to be amended twice to overcome court challenges, after opponents argued it was illegal and unconstitutional because it discriminated against people based on their faith.
A toned-down version was ultimately upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2018 but then rescinded by the Biden administration.
The travel ban announced in June was designed to avoid some of the legal pitfalls of Trump’s first attempt, placing less emphasis on religion.
In August, a judge in Washingon DC ruled that the federal law invoked by Trump did not give the State Department the power to deny visas to foreigners.
The decision, issued by US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, applied to 82 people from Afghanistan, Burma, Togo, Somalia and Iran who won the right to apply for visas under the so-called diversity visa programme.
However, the ruling accepted that immigration authorities were still allowed to deny the foreign citizens entry to the US by turning them away at a port of entry or instructing airline officials to refuse them boarding.
