Shooting at guards: Going to America more difficult, 'Green cards also being reviewed'

  

Shooting at guards: Going to America more difficult, 'Green cards also being reviewed'

The path for foreigners to enter the United States has become increasingly difficult since an Afghan citizen shot National Guardsmen near the White House in Washington last week.

After the incident, President Trump and his administration announced a halt to the processing of refugee applications, while also announcing a ban on visas for those traveling on Afghan passports.

According to the AP news agency, the administration has stated that decisions regarding asylum in the country are being stopped, while green cards for people from "precautionary" countries are also being reviewed, while visas for Afghans have also been stopped.

A day earlier, President Trump had also said that a ban on asylum applications was under consideration for a “long period of time.”

Similarly, a few days ago, the AP reported that President Trump’s administration was also reviewing the cases of all those who entered the United States during the tenure of former President Joe Biden.

These measures have drawn harsh criticism from refugee advocates and those working with Afghan citizens, who have called them “collective punishment.”

On the other hand, the Trump administration says that the new policies are necessary to ensure that those who are entering the country or are already in the country do not pose a threat to anyone here.

“All asylum decisions will be withheld until we are certain that any alien in the country has been fully vetted,” Joseph Adlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, wrote in a post on X last week.

No formal instructions have been issued regarding the action to be taken following such statements, so little information has emerged about this yet.

Asylum seekers must tell US authorities about the risks they face if they are sent back, regardless of their race or nationality.

If someone is granted asylum in the US, they then have the right to remain there, after which green cards and citizenship issues also proceed.

After the shooting incident near the White House on November 26, Homeland Security said that an Afghan national named Rahmanullah Linkwal was involved and that he was granted asylum earlier this year, while he arrived in the US in 2021 during the presidency of President Joe Biden.

He had been working with US authorities in Afghanistan and arrived in the US under a leniency policy that was introduced for Afghan citizens who assisted US authorities there.

Two guards were targeted in the incident, in which a female guard was killed and a male officer was seriously injured.