'Scapegoating': Thousands of Afghans thrust into uncertainty after DC shooting

The more details that emerge about Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal - suspected of shooting two members of the National Guard last week - the more it becomes clear he was a critical asset to US forces in Afghanistan, and was, as a result, thoroughly vetted by the CIA. 

Lakanwal, now in custody in Washington, DC, was revealed to have been part of the CIA's Zero Unit during the US's 20-year-long war in Afghanistan, and specifically part of an elite Afghan counterterrorism team called Unit 03 - the Kandahar Strike Force.  

But between landing in the US in 2021 via the US-orchestrated evacuation programme called Operation Allies Welcome, and having his asylum application approved in April of this year, he reportedly struggled to adapt to life in the US.

Reports show that he has had to contend with culture shock, isolation from family, and the need to start his life all over again after having been relatively well-paid and in a high-ranking role back home. 

"I know for a fact that in January 2024, a note was sent out across his ecosystem trying to get him help. One of the resettlement agencies that has the behavioural health program showed up trying to help him. He declined," Shawn VanDiver, the founder and president of the non-profit advocacy group #AfghanEvac, told Middle East Eye. 

"We need to make very clear that this is not indicative of a larger problem with Afghans, [but the president] immediately tried to turn this into a thing about Afghans, rather than a thing about mental health. There's still a lot of questions that are out there, like, where the hell did he get a gun?" VanDiver said. 

But within hours of the shooting, which later resulted in the death of one of the US National Guard members, President Donald Trump said in a televised address from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, that immigrants will no longer be welcome "if they can't love our country". 

“We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country," he said. 

Debts owed?

The Trump administration was already cracking down on immigration before Wednesday's shooting, and Afghans have been a target of its efforts. 

Last week, CNN reported that the Trump administration was planning to reinterview potentially tens of thousands of refugees who were admitted to the US under the presidency of Joe Biden.

In May, the Trump administration eliminated the Operation Enduring Welcome programme - an interagency pipeline built to continue relocating vetted Afghan wartime allies after the initial evacuation - as well as the Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, which supported the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) for Afghans.

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While the Trump administration has not officially ended SIV processing, the moves have drastically slowed processing for tens of thousands of applicants.

A federal court ordered the government to expedite the processing of the longest-delayed SIV applications, but the Trump administration has indicated its intent to appeal.

The administration also stripped Afghans of so-called Temporary Protected Status earlier this summer, leaving more than 11,000 Afghans who are in the US stuck in legal limbo.

"Every one of them, or one of their family members, if not extended family members, did something for the United States," VanDiver told MEE.

So does the US owe resettlement to many Afghans in a way that may not apply to other immigrants?

"Absolutely," he said. "They stood up for the idea of democracy, and their relationship with us has put them at great risk to their lives."

Former Afghan diplomat and nonresident senior fellow at The Atlantic Council, Omar Samad, said "the facts" speak for themselves. 

"If the American people want to go and look at how much money was spent on these wars, and where did the money go, and who benefitted, and who didn't... and were we successful in building what we all aspire to, these are very big questions that need to be answered, and answers that need to be analysed," he told MEE.

"But at the end of the day, I think that we all owe it to those who have lost their lives, whether American or Afghans, and to those who paid the highest cost... Let's not forget Afghanistan was the longest war the United States was engaged in." 

Democratic lawmakers have said Trump is weaponising a tragedy where two Americans in uniform were killed as they patrolled the streets to protect their own citizens.

Senator Mark Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN on Sunday that "going after a large group of people, most of which I think are just trying to live their lives, raise their families, go to work every day, the US government harassing them years later does not make a lot of sense to me". 

Senator Chris Van Hollen, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC News that "there’s no evidence that there was something that escaped the vetting," and that Lakanwal "might have been radicalised here. If that’s the case... the most recent in time vetting was by the Trump administration". 

"The president and his administration govern through petty grievances and playground behaviour," VanDiver told MEE. "We're asking Congress to stand strong with Afghans and to ensure that they don't let the president turn this into a political cudgel any more than he already has." 

'Scapegoating'

Some 70,000 Afghans have come to the US since the chaotic and deadly August 2021 US withdrawal, according to the Department of Homeland Security. 

Another 180,000 people are waiting to come to the US in the SIV programme alone, and there are estimated to be another 65,000 refugees and 15,000 Afghans just waiting on family reunification, according to #AfghanEvac.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services is already backlogged because of the administration's previously declared intent to re-screen the applications of refugees from the last four years, as well as things like the social media accounts of those on student or working visas, Laila Ayub, an Afghan-American lawyer and founder of Project ANAR, told MEE.

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"They have, unfortunately, a lot of resources for deportation and detention right now, and so that's our concern, is that they're going to subject more people to that. And we don't think that's right. We don't think that that's lawful," she said. 

"It really has a negative effect on whole communities. It leads to people staying home other than going to work. It decreases school attendance," she added. "They've been worried about gathering in the community and how they're going to be impacted, and they've seen how this kind of scapegoating of... Muslims and immigrants, in general, has in the past resulted in surveillance and increased law enforcement activity, so they're scared." 

Ayub said that Project ANAR will be mobilising with allies to "to push back on this collective punishment" and provide legal support, as Afghans already in the US who have lost their legal status - as well as those waiting to bring the rest of their family to the country - grapple with the new reality. 

Mirriam Sediq, who runs Seddiq Law Maryland, previously told MEE that what used to be "lawful categories for Afghans" suddenly no longer exist, and the change can happen overnight. 

"There are people that came to the US in 2021, 2022 through humanitarian parole. There are also those who have [Temporary Protected Status]. And TPS has been ended for Afghans, so they're really left in a completely no man's land right now."