Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Sunday that the Afghan national suspected of shooting two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday was “radicalized since he’s been here in this country.”
“We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state, and we’re going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him, who were his family members,” she continued on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The suspected shooter, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who worked alongside U.S. troops in a special Afghan Army unit backed by the CIA. He was granted asylum in the U.S. through the Operation Allies Welcome program, which resettled tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked alongside the U.S. after its withdrawal from the country.
Lakanwal, who entered the U.S. in 2021, had his asylum granted under the Trump administration earlier this year. In response to questions about whether Lakanwal was properly vetted by the current administration during his asylum process, Noem blamed former President Joe Biden.
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“The vetting process happens when the person comes into the country,” Noem said.
“Joe Biden completely did not vet any of these individuals, did not vet this individual,” she continued. “That’s the Biden administration’s responsibility. This is the consequences of the dangerous situation he put our country in when allowed those people to infiltrate our country during that abandonment of Afghanistan.”
Lakanwal has been charged with first-degree murder for the death of 20-year-old West Virginia National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains hospitalized.
The Associated Press reported on Sunday that Lakanwal had struggled with mental health for years prior to Friday’s shooting, with such rapid deterioration that a community advocate fearing suicidal ideations attempted to seek help from a refugee organization on his behalf.
Lakanwal resettled with his wife and five sons under the age of 12 but struggled to maintain a job, commit to English courses and reportedly alternated between “periods of dark isolation and reckless travel,” a community member told the AP. Sometimes, he spent weeks in his “darkened room, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife or older kids.”
In response to the shooting President Donald Trump has called to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions.”
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.”
Noem said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press that DHS plans to review every Afghan who entered under Operation Allies Welcome, a program launched in August 2021 by the Biden administration to resettle vulnerable Afghans following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, and that the asylum process would resume once that backlog of cases “cleared up.”
“The individuals who are here in this country on that program need to be vetted under our standards that we’re implementing under President Trump to ensure that they even should be in our country, and if they’re not, removed immediately,” Noem said.
In a separate interview on “Meet the Press” Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly agreed with the Trump administration’s decision to review the vetting process for incoming foreign nationals.
“It sounds like they did not do enough vetting before they gave him his asylum claim,” he added. “She talked about changing the vetting process. I think that’s a good idea.”
This article has been updated to correct the day of the shooting.
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