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President Donald Trump has directed the federal agency that oversees legal immigration to the U.S. to conduct a sweeping review of green card holders from what the administration calls countries of concern, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Thursday.
“At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said Thursday afternoon in a statement on X.
Edlow said that protecting the country “remains paramount” and that “the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies.”
Asked for details on which countries are considered “of concern,” USCIS pointed to a June presidential proclamation listing 19 countries “considered deficient with regards to screening and vetting.” Afghanistan is one of the countries on the list, which also includes Haiti, Iran and Venezuela.
Thursday’s announcement comes a day after a shooting near the White House left two members of the National Guard in critical condition. Federal prosecutors say the suspect, an Afghan national who once assisted American forces, was resettled in the U.S. under a program called Operation Allies Welcome during the Biden administration following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said Thursday morning that her office is reviewing the suspect’s immigration history and the vetting process that allowed his entry into the country.
A source familiar with the case and a separate law enforcement source told NBC News that the suspect was granted asylum this year.
Two West Virginia National Guard members — identified as Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24 — remain in critical condition following the attack. They were in Washington as part of Trump’s deployment of federal troops to several U.S. cities.
In a video released by the White House, Trump called the attack an “act of terror” and said additional National Guard troops would be deployed to Washington.
The administration said shortly after Trump’s remarks that all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals will be halted indefinitely.
Katherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News.
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