Following the unfortunate Washington DC shooting on November 26, 2025, Donald Trump has taken a hardline stance on Afghan immigration, ordering a suspension of all requests. The shooter has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had previously worked with the CIA.
Lakanwal was given asylum in the U.S. in 2025 under the Trump administration after complete vetting and other required checks. Authorities say the attack was unprovoked. While the National Guard members were ambushed, Lakanwal was eventually taken into custody after getting minor injuries.
Trump has described the attack as a terrorist one and the case is investigated as an act of terrorism. Talking about Lakanwal’s motivation, Trump mentioned in a press conference that he might have been upset about not being able to commit crimes since the deployed troops in Washington DC were doing an excellent job at keeping the crime rates down.
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Trump further said that though he was not sure of Lakanwal’s motivation, it goes without saying that what he committed was horrible. When the President was asked if he was saying all Afghans were bad for the US because of the act of this one man, he denied it but then mentioned that there were too many of them in the US.
He launched into a rant, claiming Afghans arrived on planes in large numbers without any proper documents and have been causing troubles. When it was pointed out that many were legally in the country, Trump agreed to that only to go back to his previous point of a massive number of Afghans coming to the US in planes without proper vetting or background checks.
In the middle of his rant, Trump suddenly shifted focus to Somalia and Ilhan Omar. Taking a turn from Afghanistan, Trump said, “look at Somalia, they’re taking over Minnesota and they are we got a lot of problems with the gangs with all of the things taking place in Minnesota. We have an incompetent governor, a dope, we have a dope governor. Um, they can’t be happy about what’s going on.”
He then steered the conversation again back to Afghanistan saying, “And uh if you talk about the Afghans, you know, there’s a problem because so many bad ones came in with on the planes. They just walked on. Whoever the strongest people were physically in a way, but whoever the strongest, they got on the planes. There was no checkin. They just swamped the planes. They took off. We had no idea who the who they were. Yeah.”
Trump on the Somalian invasion:
“Gangs of Somalians come from a country with no government, no laws, no water, no military, no nothing – and they preach to us about our constitution and how our country is no good.”
— Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) November 27, 2025
A journalist then asked him how Somalia was related to the discussion about the Afghans, saying, “What do the Somalians have to do with this Afghan guy who shot the national?” To this, Trump replied, “Uh nothing. But Somalians have caused a lot of trouble. They’re ripping us off for a lot of money. There’s a tremendous amount of uh money going back to Somalia. What the hell are we paying money to Somalia for? But they’re ripping off our country at a level that few people have been able to see before. That’s about the only thing that you talk about competence. We have Ilhan mar who does nothing but complain about our country and our constitution.”
Trump then added, “She comes from a country with practically it’s practically no country. It’s devastated. It’s crimeridden. It’s a mess. It’s a disgrace. And we took their people at tremendous. We’re not taking their people anymore. We’re not taking their people. And we’re getting a lot of their people out because they’re nothing but trouble.”
The connection that Trump made between Afghanistan and Somalia was not exactly clear apart from the point that he emphasized regarding people from these places being illegally in the US.
