President Donald Trump has announced that his administration will “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries,” in a sweeping and controversial order. The abrupt declaration came in a dramatic late-night post on his social media platform following a fatal shooting near the White House that left one of his own troops dead.
In the post, Trump said the move was necessary to allow the U.S. immigration system to “fully recover.” He called for the termination of what he described as “millions of Biden illegal admissions,” including those he said were signed by “autopen,” and vowed to remove from the country anyone deemed “not a net asset to the United States.” The president also pledged to end federal benefits for non-citizens, to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility,” and to deport any foreign national deemed a public charge, security risk, or “non-compatible with Western civilization.”
The declaration came a day after an Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was accused of fatally shooting a 20-year-old soldier from the West Virginia National Guard, and critically wounding another near Washington, D.C. Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 under the resettlement programme known as Operation Allies Welcome and was later granted asylum.
In response to the attack, the administration has already implemented immediate changes. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) halted indefinitely all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals. The administration also ordered what was described as a “full-scale, rigorous re-examination” of existing green-card holders from a group of 19 “countries of concern.”
Trump framed the shooting as proof that “lax migration policies” represent the United States’ “single greatest national security threat.” He portrayed the gunman’s arrival under the 2021 Afghan airlift—a programme initially established under former President Joe Biden—as emblematic of systemic failures in immigration vetting. The president shared a public posting depicting Afghans being evacuated under the airlift and described it as a “horrendous airlift” that allowed hundreds of thousands of people into the country “totally unvetted and unchecked.” He asserted the need for what he called “reverse migration” as the only cure for what he sees as mass inflow from unstable nations.
Critics of the administration have warned that the language used by Trump—especially terms like “Third World countries” and “reverse migration”—carry heavy historical and racial baggage, and risk fueling xenophobia. To date, the White House and Homeland Security officials have not clarified precisely how the pause will be implemented or which countries will be affected.
The new policy is only the latest in a series of aggressive immigration measures introduced by the administration this year. Earlier in 2025, following a Supreme Court ruling, the government moved to resume deportations of hundreds of thousands of migrants who had entered under previous humanitarian parole programmes. More recently, in advance of this announcement, the administration revoked deportation protections for other groups of migrants, rescinded temporary protected status for some nationalities, and moved to terminate or scale back overall parole and refugee admission programmes.
For immigrants currently in the United States under legal status—both green-card holders and refugees—the president’s announcement has raised immediate fears about future de-naturalization, loss of benefits, and potential deportation. For asylum seekers and migrants currently in the application pipeline—especially those from Afghanistan or the 19 “countries of concern”—the pause effectively halts any chance of legal entry for the foreseeable future.
The shooting in Washington sharpened the political and policy stakes. For supporters of the president’s agenda, the tragedy offered a justification to tighten immigration controls and reassert national security priorities. For opponents, it spotlighted the risks of collective punishment based on the actions of a single individual. Earlier court decisions had already blocked some of the administration’s prior attempts to broadly strip migrants’ legal status, arguing that mass removals violate due process. Those decisions suggest that many of the policies proposed today could face legal challenges.
As the administration moves to implement its new directives, questions now swirl about where the limits lie. Which nations will be classified as “Third World countries”? How will long-standing legal residents be treated under new rules targeting “non-citizens”? Will the government seek to reverse naturalisations granted in prior years?
For immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in the United States—and for the tens of thousands awaiting the outcome of visa and asylum applications—the announcement marks a drastic change in policy direction. What remains uncertain is how and when the sweeping pronouncement will translate into enforceable law, and what its impact will be on communities across the country.
