Trump Announces Plan To “Permanently Pause Migration” Days After Shooting Near White House
In a bombshell announcement today, US President Donald Trump said he would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” to allow the United States immigration system to, in his words, “fully recover”.
The statement came just days after a shocking shooting incident a few blocks from the White House, in which two National Guard troopers were attacked on Wednesday.
The announcement was made on Thanksgiving Day through a long post on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social. The President claimed that immigration had “eroded gains” the country had made in technology and living standards, and said the new policy would reverse what he described as years of harm.
In his message, Trump wrote that he intends to halt all migration from what he called “Third World Countries” and terminate all immigration admissions made during the previous Biden administration.
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He alleged that many of those approvals were signed “illegally” or through “Autopen”.
Trump said he would remove anyone whom he claims was not a “net asset” to the US, end all federal benefits to non-citizens, and denaturalize those migrants he believed were “undermining domestic tranquility”.
He added that the process would focus on people he described as “public charges”, “security risks”, or “non-compatible with Western Civilization”.
“These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations,” Trump wrote.
He concluded by saying, “Only reverse migration can fully cure this situation. Happy Thanksgiving to all, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for.”
Trump’s comments come shortly after a violent attack in Washington, where two National Guard troopers were shot at close range. The shooter approached officers Sarah Beckstrom (20) and Andrew Wolfe (24) and opened fire.
Beckstrom died from her injuries. Trump paid tribute to her, calling her a “highly respected, magnificent person”. Wolfe remains in critical condition.
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The suspect has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who moved to the US in 2021 after the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Authorities have said that the motive behind the shooting has not yet been confirmed.
Soon after the attacker’s identity was made public, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it would pause all immigration processing related to Afghan nationals indefinitely.
In a statement, the agency said, “The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission.”
Minutes before announcing the migration freeze, Trump posted a photograph of Afghan nationals being airlifted by US forces in 2021, criticising the Biden administration for what he called a “horrendous airlift”.
He said “hundreds of thousands” entered the US “totally unvetted”, and added: “We will fix it, but we will never forget what Crooked Joe Biden and his thugs did to our country.”
In another post, Trump issued a strongly worded Thanksgiving message. He claimed that the foreign-born population in the US was 53 million and alleged that most of them had arrived from “failed nations, prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels”.
He also said that migrants received large federal benefits, stating that a household earning $30,000 could receive “roughly $50,000 in benefits”, though he did not provide evidence to support the figures.
Calling rising immigration the “leading cause of social dysfunction” in the US, he stated that issues such as crime, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages and urban decline were linked to refugee inflows.
He also claimed that “hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia” were taking over the state of Minnesota, again without presenting data.
