(MENAFN) Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has called for a broad travel ban targeting nations she says are “flooding” the United States with criminal migrants. The statement follows last week’s shooting in Washington, DC, in which two National Guard members were injured by an Afghan asylum seeker. In response, the US has temporarily halted all visa processing for Afghan passport holders.

Posting on X, Noem said she had met with President Donald Trump and is “recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.” She added that the US was not established “for foreign invaders” to “slaughter our heroes” or drain taxpayer resources. “We don't want them. Not one,” Noem wrote, without specifying the countries that would be affected. Trump later shared her post on Truth Social.

Authorities have identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who entered the US through a special program initiated in 2021 to evacuate vulnerable Afghans following the Taliban’s takeover. He faces first-degree murder charges after Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, one of the two guards injured, died from her wounds on Thanksgiving Day. Her colleague, Andrew Woolfe, remains critically injured.

Trump placed responsibility on his predecessor, Joe Biden, for allowing Lakanwal into the country and pledged to “permanently pause migration” from certain nations. According to reports, cases from 19 countries—including Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Haiti, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and Venezuela—will be re-examined.

The former president has consistently advocated for a major overhaul of US asylum policies, linking immigration control to combating extremism. Since resuming office, he has promised to implement “the largest deportation” of undocumented migrants in US history and to purge federal agencies of so-called “woke” practices.

In line with a tighter immigration approach, the White House recently reduced the annual refugee admissions cap to 7,500, the lowest level ever recorded.

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