Trump: The freeze on asylum decisions will continue "For a long time"

US President Donald Trump, on Sunday, said that his administration intends to maintain a temporary suspension of asylum decisions "For a long time"following the shooting by an Afghan citizen of two members of the National Guard near the White House.

When Trump was asked if there was a specific period for this suspension, he replied that he had not set "Time limit" The measure, which the Department of Homeland Security says is linked to a list of 19 countries that have previously imposed travel restrictions on it.

Trump added "We don’t want these people. Do you know why we don’t want them? Because many of them were not good, and should not have been in our country".

The administration issued TrumpThis comment follows the November 26 shooting in Washington of two National Guard members, killing 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and seriously wounding a colleague.

A 29-year-old Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the incident.

Lakanwal was affiliated with "Partner force" Powered by Central Intelligencewas in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, before he entered the United States under a resettlement program after the US military withdrawal in 2021.

Lakanwal was granted asylum in April 2025 under the Trump administration, but administration officials blamed his entry on what they called lax vetting by the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Trump wrote after the shooting that he planned to "To permanently stop immigration from all third world countries to allow the American system to fully recover"

When the US Department of Homeland Security was asked about the nationalities that would be affected by the decision, the ministry referred to Agence France-Presse to a list of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and others, whose citizens have been facing restrictions on travel to the United States since last June.