Donald Trump said he would “permanently halt immigration from all third world countries,” a day after two members of the national guard were shot in Washington DC in an attack that became a political blow to the President’s continued crackdown on immigration.
In a social media post beginning with “a very happy Thanksgiving”, posted after 11pm on Thursday, the US president said his administration would “end all federal benefits and subsidies to non-citizens” and remove “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States”.
It is not clear how the president will enact such a “pause” in migration. Previous bans issued by his administration have faced challenges in the courts and in Congress.
Earlier in the night, Trump announced the death of Sarah Beckstrom, one of the two members of the guard shot in the attack near the White House on Wednesday. Authorities suspect the shooting was carried out by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan citizen who entered the United States in September 2021 under a Biden-era program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands from Afghanistan after the chaotic withdrawal of the United States from the country.
He was granted asylum in April this year, under the Trump administration, Reuters reported, and on Thursday the CIA confirmed that he worked with military units supported by the agency during the US war in Afghanistan.
Related: Firing the national guardsmen will likely make Trump’s reign even more difficult
Lakanwal was injured in the attack and remains in custody. A second member of the national guard, Andrew Wolfe, 24, is still fighting for his life, according to the president.
The President’s late night post appeared to mark an escalation in the anti-migrant policy of his second term, which has been dominated by a campaign of mass deportations.
The extended screed posted in the president’s Social Truth account did not identify the countries he intended to target or explain what he meant by “third world,” but instead used blistering anti-immigrant rhetoric to blame issues like high crime and America’s growing deficit on the presence of migrants and refugees, without evidence.
In his post, the president singled out Somali communities in Minnesota, after promising last week to end temporary protection status for people from Somalia in the state.
Earlier in the day, Trump claimed that the shooting in Washington DC “reminds us that we have no greater national security priority than making sure we have complete control over the people who enter and stay in our country.”
In the 24 hours after the shooting, the president and members of his administration announced major immigration reforms. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the processing of immigration claims related to Afghan nationals has been suspended indefinitely pending further review.
Later, the Department of Homeland Security said the administration was expanding that to include a review of all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration. The department did not clarify whether it is reviewing all asylum cases from Afghanistan only or from other countries as well.
USCIS director Joseph Edlow said in a statement that he was also directing “a full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern,” at Trump’s request.
Edlow’s statement did not specify which countries were considered countries of concern. USCIS pointed to a travel ban Trump imposed in June on citizens of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Laos, Togo, Venezuela, Sierra Leone and Turkmenistan.
A travel ban issued in 2017 during Trump’s first term was widely criticized and faced legal and popular resistance when Trump tried to impose it immediately after taking office. The policy was redrafted by the White House after a long courtroom battle, but revoked by Joe Biden in 2021.
National guard troops have been positioned around Washington DC since August, when the Trump administration declared a “crime emergency” and ordered them to support federal and local law enforcement.
Shortly after Wednesday’s shooting, Trump said he would send 500 more national guard troops to Washington DC.
A federal judge last week ordered an end to the national guard deployment but also put her order on hold for 21 days to give the Trump administration time to either withdraw the troops or appeal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report