MS NOW Reports Afghan Nationals ‘Extremely Worried’ Trump Will Kick Them Out of US After DC Shooting

MS NOW’s David Noriega reported Afghan nationals are “extremely worried” President Donald Trump will kick them out of the U.S., days after an Afghan national shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C.

Noriega, during a segment on The Weekend: Primetime on Saturday, reported live from Bellingham, Washington, where the suspected D.C. shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, had been living. He said the “small community” of Afghans in the neighborhood are terrified they could be sent packing, after the Trump Administration halted “all immigration requests” from Afghanistan following the attack.

“The concern is that for Afghan nationals specifically, the administration could go further,” Noriega said. “They could actually preemptively terminate these asylum proceedings, which would render these people extremely vulnerable to detention, to deportation, likely to third countries, because deportation flights don’t happen at this moment directly to Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Those third countries could in turn, theoretically, deport them to Afghanistan.”

Noriega said the Taliban would put a “target” on the back of those Afghans, if they returned home, because many worked with the U.S. government.

He then interviewed Gabriel Harrison, a local attorney focused on immigration, who said those Afghans would “definitely” face “torture” and “death” if they were sent back.

Noriega’s report comes after 29-year-old Lakanwal is suspected of shooting the two troops in the nation’s capital.

Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old National Guard member, was killed in the heinous attack on Wednesday. The other troop who was shot, 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, is fighting for his life in a hospital.

“She was savagely attacked. She’s dead. She’s not with us,” Trump said on Thanksgiving. “[Beckstrom was] outstanding in every single way, in every department. Just horrible.”

Lakanwal was brought to the States as part of then-President Joe Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome. The program resettled about 85,000 Afghans in the U.S., after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.

Trump, on Wednesday night, vowed the “animal” who shot the two troops will “pay a very steep price.” His administration, the next morning, halted “all immigration requests” from Afghanistan.

The president also ordered a “full-scale, rigorous re-examination” of green card holders from 19 “countries of concern,” including Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, and Venezuela.

MS NOW’s report happened hours after Fox News reported another Afghan national was arrested in Texas for making a terroristic threat in a TikTok video earlier in the week.

Mohammad Dawood Alokozay was arrested for saying he was building a bomb and intending to use it to harm citizens in the Fort Worth area.

Noriega said several Afghans living in Washington asked him “very pointedly” to “convey to our viewers that they do not want the American public to associate them with the actions” of the D.C. shooter. “They want to express a profound gratitude to the United States for allowing them to live here,” he said.

Watch above, via MS NOW.

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