Kabul [Afghanistan], November 29: The Afghan man accused of shooting two National Guard members will face first-degree murder charges.
This is for an attack that prompted President Donald Trump to declare he would freeze migration from "Third World Countries" to the U.S.
U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, said on Friday that there will be other charges as well against 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who she said ambushed the National Guardsmen from West Virginia near the White House on Wednesday.
In a Thanksgiving call with U.S. military service members on Thursday Trump called the shootings a "terrorist attack" and officials have said they were conducting a terrorism probe into Wednesday's shooting.
"What happened at that crime is unmistakable. It is a premeditated murder," Pirro told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program. "We are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree," she said.
Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her wounds on Thursday. Pirro told Fox that Beckstrom's fellow Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, 24, was in critical condition.
On his Truth Social platform late Thursday, Trump escalated his rhetoric on immigration. Since taking office this year he has stepped up arrests of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, cracked down on unlawful border crossings and stripped legal status from hundreds of thousands of people.
"I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden's autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States," Trump said on Truth Social, referring to his predecessor.
After taking office in 2021, Biden reversed many of Trump's restrictive immigration policies from his first term, saying they blocked people in need of humanitarian protection and were unfairly discriminatory.
Trump did not name any countries. Asked about "Third World" countries, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday referred Reuters to 19 countries listed in a June travel ban, opens new tab.
Earlier, Homeland Security officials had said Trump ordered a widespread review of asylum cases approved under the Biden administration and green cards issued to citizens of the 19 countries, which include Afghanistan.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
