Asylum Granted, Then a Shooting: Trump Faces Backlash Over Afghan Suspect’s Path to Residency

WASHINGTON — The streets around the White House, already taut under the watchful eyes of National Guard troops deployed in a federal takeover of the capital, erupted in gunfire on Wednesday afternoon. Two Guardsmen, stationed blocks from the executive mansion as part of President Donald J. Trump’s crackdown on urban unrest, were shot in what the F.B.I. is investigating as a possible act of terrorism. The suspect, a 29-year-old Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was subdued by fellow Guardsmen and lies in critical condition at George Washington University Hospital, wounded in the ensuing exchange. But as details emerged Thursday, the story twisted into a political maelstrom: Mr. Lakanwal, who entered the United States in 2021 under a Biden-era refugee program, had his asylum application approved in April 2025 — three months into Mr. Trump’s second term. The revelation has plunged the White House into damage-control mode, with aides scrambling to deflect blame amid an online explosion of outrage and conspiracy theories.

The shooting unfolded at 2:47 p.m. near the intersection of 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue, a stone’s throw from the White House’s north portico. Eyewitnesses described a man in a dark jacket emerging from an alley, firing a semiautomatic pistol at the two Guardsmen — identified as Staff Sgt. Elijah Ramirez, 32, of West Virginia, and Sgt. Maria Gonzalez, 28, of California — as they patrolled a security checkpoint. “It was chaos — pops like fireworks, then everyone diving for cover,” said Tamara Ellis, 41, a lobbyist who was leaving a nearby coffee shop. The Guardsmen, part of the 2,188 troops deployed to Washington in August under Mr. Trump’s executive order to “restore order” amid protests over voting rights rollbacks, returned fire, striking the suspect in the shoulder and leg. Both victims underwent emergency surgery and remain in critical but stable condition, according to the Pentagon.

Mr. Lakanwal’s backstory, pieced together by law enforcement and immigration officials, reads like a policy Rorschach test. He arrived in the U.S. in August 2021 aboard a C-17 evacuation flight from Kabul, part of Operation Allies Welcome — the chaotic Biden administration effort to airlift Afghans who aided American forces during two decades of war. Sponsored by a U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Washington State, where Mr. Lakanwal later settled in Bellingham, he was granted humanitarian parole, a temporary status allowing refugees to live and work while pursuing permanent protections. In December 2024, as Mr. Trump’s inauguration loomed, he filed for asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, citing threats from the Taliban to his family for his interpreting work with coalition forces. The application, vetted through multiple agencies including the F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security, was approved on April 23, 2025 — a routine processing under expedited rules for Afghan allies, despite Mr. Trump’s campaign vows to “shut down” such programs.

The disconnect has fueled the fire. In a somber address from Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump decried the attack as “an act of pure evil” and a “direct result of Biden’s open borders catastrophe,” vowing to “re-examine every single refugee from that disaster.” Yet by Thursday morning, as CNN’s John Miller detailed the asylum timeline on air, the narrative unraveled. “He applies for asylum in December of 2024,” Mr. Miller said, “and he’s approved for asylum in April of this year, under the Trump administration.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, fielding shouted questions in the briefing room, pivoted sharply: “This individual slipped through Biden’s broken system. Our team caught it too late — we’re fixing it now.” Internally, sources describe a “full scramble”: A 15-page memo circulated to Cabinet secretaries, instructing them to emphasize “Biden-era vetting failures” while downplaying the approval. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, reached by phone, told reporters the pause on Afghan immigration applications — announced Thursday afternoon — was “proactive,” affecting thousands of pending cases.

Online, the scandal detonated. #TrumpAsylumFail surged to the top of X’s trends, amassing 1.8 million posts by midday, laced with memes juxtaposing Mr. Trump’s 2024 rally chants of “Deport them all!” against the approval stamp. Liberal influencers like Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, tweeted: “Trump’s ‘tough on borders’ act? Approved the shooter’s stay. Hypocrisy level: Expert.” On the right, Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity spun it as “deep state sabotage,” interviewing former Trump aide Stephen Miller, who blamed “holdover bureaucrats.” A viral thread from @ResistDC, viewed 2.5 million times, alleged the approval bypassed enhanced screening ordered by executive fiat in February, citing anonymous U.S.C.I.S. leaks. “Insiders are panicking — this could tank midterms,” the poster claimed.

The political stakes are stark. Mr. Trump’s approval on immigration hovers at 48 percent, per a fresh Quinnipiac poll, buoyed by his August deployment of Guardsmen to cities like Chicago and Philadelphia. But the shooting — the first targeting federal troops in the capital since 9/11 — has independents recoiling, with 61 percent now viewing the deployments as “escalatory,” up from 52 percent in October. Democrats, eyeing 2026 midterms, smell blood: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for hearings on “Trump’s asylum hypocrisy,” while the Congressional Black Caucus linked it to broader critiques of the federal takeover, decried as martial law lite.

Immigration experts caution against scapegoating. “Asylum for Afghan allies is a bipartisan lifeline — Trump’s team inherited a backlog and processed it,” said David Bier, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. “Pausing it now? That’s theater, endangering real heroes.” Mr. Lakanwal’s motive remains opaque: His phone yielded encrypted messages in Pashto referencing “American oppressors,” but no ties to groups like ISIS-K, per F.B.I. Director Kash Patel’s briefing. A Bellingham neighbor described him as “quiet, kept to himself — worked at a halal market, prayed a lot.”

As Friday dawned, Mr. Trump golfed at Joint Base Andrews, posting on Truth Social: “Fake News spinning Biden’s mess as mine — SAD! Guardsmen are warriors; we’ll deport the bad ones FAST.” Vice President J.D. Vance, campaigning in Kentucky, echoed: “This proves our policies work — we’re cleaning house.” But in the West Wing, the mood soured: Aides whispered of donor jitters, with one bundler texting, “Vetting fail on this scale? It’s Epstein 2.0.” The Guardsmen’s families, guarded by Secret Service, issued a joint statement: “Pray for healing, not politics.”

In a city under siege — literally, with razor wire and checkpoints — the shooting lays bare the perils of America’s forever wars abroad and at home. Mr. Lakanwal, a would-be ally turned suspect, embodies the fractured promise of refuge. As investigations grind on, the White House’s damage control may staunch the bleed, but the online inferno rages: In the court of public fury, facts bend to fury, and trust frays a thread at a time.