Trump says US will permanently pause migration from ‘Third World Countries’

U.S. President Donald Trump said his administration will work to permanently pause migration from all “Third World Countries” to allow the U.S. system to fully recover.

Trump also said on social media platform Truth Social that he will end all federal benefits and subsidies to “noncitizens,” adding that he will “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any foreign national who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western civilization.”

Trump’s comments came following the death of a National Guard member on Thursday after being shot near the White House in an ambush that investigators say was carried out by an Afghan national.

Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her wounds and her fellow Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, 24, was “fighting for his life,” Trump said, as investigators conducted what officials said was a terrorism probe after Wednesday’s shooting.

The FBI searched multiple properties in a widening investigation, including a home in Washington state linked to the suspect, who officials said was part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan before coming to the U.S. in 2021 under a resettlement program.

Agents seized numerous electronic devices from the residence of the suspect, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, including cellphones, laptops, and iPads, and interviewed his relatives, FBI Director Kash Patel told a news conference.

U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro said the suspect drove cross-country and then ambushed the Guard members while they were patrolling near the White House on Wednesday afternoon.

“I want to express the anguish and the horror of our entire nation that the terrorist attack yesterday in our nation’s capital, in which a savage monster gunned down two service members in the West Virginia National Guard, who were deployed as part of the DC Task Force,” Trump said in a Thanksgiving call with U.S. military service members.

Casting blame on the administration of his White House predecessor, President Joe Biden, Trump said the alleged gunman, who he described as having gone “cuckoo,” was among thousands of Afghans who came in unvetted as the U.S. carried out a chaotic withdrawal in 2021. He provided no evidence to support his assertion.

Trump said the suspect’s “atrocity reminds us that we have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country.”

Armed with a powerful revolver, a .357 Magnum, the gunman shot the two National Guard members before being wounded in an exchange of gunfire with other troops. He was in hospital in serious condition, Trump said.