Washington DC shooting live updates: Trump says suspect in ‘act of terror’ attack on National Guard is Afghan refugee

President Donald Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who entered under the Biden administration after the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington D.C.

In a video message released on social media on Wednesday night, Trump said: “If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them.”

He called the shooting a “heinous assault” and “a crime against our entire nation” and said it proves that lax migration policies are “the single greatest national security threat facing our nation”.

“No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival,” he said.

Trump described Afghanistan as “a hellhole on earth” and he said his administration would review everyone who entered from the country under President Joe Biden, a measure his administration had already been planning before the incident.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan national who allegedly opened fire on two National Guardsmen near the White House, reportedly served with the U.S. Special Forces.

Lakanwal, 29, served in the Afghan army for 10 years alongside U.S. Special Forces troops and was stationed in Kandahar for part of that time, NBC News reported, citing an interview with an unnamed relative of the suspect.

Investigators led by the FBI’s joint terrorism task force sought clues on Thursday to what drove him to open fire on two soldiers in what officials called an “ambush” attack on Thanksgiving eve.

The Department of Homeland Security has taken an Afghan national into custody for allegedly shooting at two National Guardsmen near the White House on Wednesday.

The suspect has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who resided in Washington state, and had no known criminal history.

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program to resettle thousands of Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the Afghanistan war and feared reprisals from Taliban forces who seized control of their homeland after the U.S. withdrawal.

Following the shooting, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency announced an immediate and indefinite halt to the “processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals” pending a review of security and vetting protocols.

The shooter appeared to have acted alone, officials said.

President Donald Trump has directed the deployment of 500 additional National Guard troops to Washington D.C. following the shooting of two Guardsmen near the White House.

The additional troops will join about 2,200 already in the city as part of the President’s contentious immigration and crime crackdown targeting Democratic-led cities.

The Guardsmen were shot and critically wounded Wednesday in downtown Washington in what officials described as a targeted ambush.

The two soldiers, members of the West Virginia National Guard, were part of a “high-visibility patrol” around 2.15p.m. E.T. near the corner of 17th and I streets, a few blocks from the White House.

The suspect came around a corner and “ambushed” them, Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Jeff Carroll said at a press briefing.

After an exchange of gunfire, other National Guard troops subdued the shooter, he said. The two wounded soldiers were in critical condition at local hospitals, FBI Director Kash Patel said.

“This is a targeted shooting,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the briefing. The shooter appeared to have acted alone, officials said.

Two National Guardsmen, who were shot in Washington, D.C, remain in a critical condition in the hospital.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described the injured Guardsmen as individuals who serve out of commitment to the country.”

Heroes willing to serve in Washington, DC, serve for people they don’t know, and they’ve never met, because they love their country and their capital and their community,” he said.

“They were willing to do dangerous things; others were not, because they love their fellow Americans.”

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said late Wednesday it has stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely, after two National Guard soldiers were shot and critically wounded in Washington.

President Donald Trump said that the shooting near the White House was “an act of terror,” saying the suspect came from Afghanistan in 2021.

The move follows Trump’s call for his government to re-examine Afghan immigrants who entered the United States when Joe Biden was President.

“The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission,” the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a post on X.

The D.C commander of the Joint Task Force has sent his “thoughts and prayers” to the two national guard troops who were shot Wednesday.

The task force is the National Guard office responsible for organizing the guard mission to the U.S. Capitol.

“On behalf of myself, and the entire Task Force, our thoughts and prayers are with the National Guardsmen and National Guard families who are going into a Thanksgiving Holiday with a burden that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” US Army Col. Larry Doane said in a statement on X.

“These Guardsmen came to the District from West Virginia to make their nation’s capital, safe and beautiful. They’re heroes.”

Doane also praised the law enforcement officials who “ran towards danger” and “subdued the suspected shooter.”

“I’d like to highlight the level of training, focus, and wherewithal it takes to see two of your own shot and have the presence of mind to subdue the suspect with no further incident,” he added.

The White House press pool, a group of journalists that travels with Donald Trump and reports on his movements, were not told about his impromptu remarks on the D.C. shooter.

A pool reporter Wednesday said that they were not advised about the inflammatory address that were streamed on the White House YouTube site “neither before, nor after.”

“No members of the pool were present during their broadcast or taping. That was not the pool camera used,” the reporter noted.

“Pool has no information about the remarks beyond what the president posted on his social media platform.”

Senior White House advisor Stephen Miller vowed that the administration would “send out” anyone who did not “add benefit” to the U.S. regardless of their refugee or asylum status.

“[Trump’s] government is going to accelerate efforts to review every person added to this country over the last four years, all 20 million,” Miller told Fox News.

“Obviously, if you’re an illegal you’re out automatically, but everybody else who was brought here, refugee, asylum status, whatever status, as he said, if you’re not someone who loves this country, if you are not adding benefit to this country we’re going to send you out.”