By Faris Tanyos
Updated on: November 28, 2025 / 12:58 AM EST
/ CBS News
President Trump said late Thursday night he would suspend immigration from developing nations to the U.S. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump wrote that he “will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover.”
The declaration follows Wednesday’s shooting in downtown Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House, in which a National Guard member was killed and a second Guard member critically wounded. The suspect detained in the shooting has been identified as a 29-year-old Afghan national who was admitted to the U.S. in September 2021, along with thousands of other Afghan refugees after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Since the shooting, the Trump administration has taken an aggressive stance on U.S. immigration policies it says are to blame for allowing the suspect into the U.S., and has vowed to change them. The president did not clarify when such a pause might take effect or how it would be implemented, nor did he specify which countries would be designated as “Third World.”
CBS News has reached out to the White House for clarification.
Mr. Trump also wrote he would “terminate” the status of millions of migrants admitted under former President Joe Biden’s administration and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” He said he would end “Federal benefits and subsidies” for “noncitizens” and deport foreign nationals deemed a “security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
Earlier Thursday, the administration said it would conduct a “full-scale, rigorous reexamination” of all green cards for immigrants from 19 countries “of concern.” Those countries included Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Venezuela. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed the White House is reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration.
Prior to the shooting, on Nov. 21, the Trump administration directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to review the cases of all refugees admitted under President Biden.
The suspect in the shooting, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, immigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan in September 2021, paroled on humanitarian grounds, a DHS official told CBS News. His asylum case was granted earlier this year, during Mr. Trump’s presidency, the official said.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the suspect lived with his family in Bellingham, Washington, and drove across the country to D.C. prior to the attack. Mr. Trump said the suspect, who was shot by a National Guard member following the ambush, is in serious condition.
The CIA disclosed Thursday that Lakanwal previously worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar that ended in 2021 following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Jennifer Jacobs, Ahmad Mukhtar and Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed to this report.
