Vance’s past warnings reignite after Afghan national named as suspect in DC Guard shooting
Vice President JD Vance has long cautioned about the U.S. refugee vetting process — dating back to the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2021 and the refugees who came afterward. Now, Vance’s previous remarks on the matter are resurfacing after two National Guard troops were shot in Washington Wednesday.
Law enforcement officials identified the shooting suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, who entered the U.S. legally in 2021 under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome program that sought to help resettle Afghan refugees in the U.S.
In 2021, Vance posted a video to social media in response to then-Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who argued that the U.S. had an obligation to assist refugees seeking to depart Afghanistan.
“Yes, let’s help the Afghans that helped us, but let’s ensure that we’re properly vetting them, so that we don’t get a bunch of people who believe they should blow themselves up at a mall because somebody looked at their wife the wrong way,” Vance, a Marine Corps veteran, said in the video clip.
Vance also claimed that a Pew Research Center survey found that four in 10 Afghans believe suicide bombing is justified to protect Islam.
Fox News Digital could not independently confirm the existence of the poll. However, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an American state-funded media organization, reported on the poll in 2013 with the same statistics.
Vance’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Afghanistan’s top religious leaders that make up the Afghan Ulema Council have previously issued Islamic rulings to ban suicide attacks, and have claimed such attacks aren’t in alignment with Islamic teachings.
More recently, Vance voiced similar concerns in an interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan in January, where he said that “we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs, we absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country.”
Specifically, Vance pointed to an Afghan national, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, who at the time had been charged for allegedly planning a terrorist attack on or around Election Day in 2024. Since then, Tawhedi pleaded guilty to two terrorism-related charges in June.
Tawhedi and his co-conspirator Abdullah Haji Zada, also from Afghanistan, were arrested on Oct. 7, 2024, after they purchased firearms and ammunition from undercover FBI agents, according to the Justice Department. Court documents claim that the two purchased two AK-47 rifles, 500 rounds of ammunition, and 10 magazines with the intent to conduct a mass-casualty attack within the U.S.
Zada, 19, was sentenced earlier in November to 15 years in federal prison.
Vance referenced his remarks from 2021 Wednesday after the shooting in Washington, and signaled future action would emerge to crack down on the vetting process for refugees.
“I remember back in 2021 criticizing the Biden policy of opening the floodgate to unvetted Afghan refugees,” Vance said Wednesday. “Friends sent me messages calling me a racist. It was a clarifying moment.”
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“Many of our voters will demand not just words, but action, and this is an entirely appropriate response,” Vance said Wednesday. “We will first bring the shooter to justice, and then we must redouble our efforts to deport people with no right to be in our country.”
U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died Thursday due to injuries from the Wednesday shooting, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe remains in critical condition, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said.
Fox News Digital first reported that Lakenwal partnered with the U.S. government, including the CIA, as a member of a partner force in Afghanistan.
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In response to the shooting, Trump said in a Thursday social media post that he would permanently pause migration from “all Third World Countries.”
Additionally, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said Thursday that in accordance with orders from Trump, he has “directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”
The White House did not provide additional information regarding which countries would be impacted, and referred Fox News Digital to Trump’s social media post.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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