Vice President JD Vance said when he had criticized Joe Biden’s policy of letting Afghan refugees into the US in 2021, he was called a racist. “They shouldn’t have been in our country,” Vance said, reacting to the revelation that Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a refugee from Afghanistan who shot two National Guard members in a terror attack outside the White House, came to the US under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome program. “I remember back in 2021 criticizing the Biden policy of opening the floodgate to unvetted Afghan refugees. Friends sent me messages calling me a racist. It was a clarifying moment,” Vance said as the administration took a hardline approach and suspended immigration requests for Afghans and President Donald Trump called Afghanistan a ‘hellhole’.“Many of our voters will demand not just words, but action, and this is an entirely appropriate response. 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. Already some voices in corporate media chirp that our immigration policies are too harsh. Tonight is a reminder of why they’re wrong,” Vance said.
But Trump gave him asylum: Major row over Rahmanullah Lakanwal
Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 under the Biden administration, and this became the main weapon for the Trump administration to blame his predecessor. But critics reminded JD Vance that Lakanwal was granted asylum in 2025 by the Trump administration. Records reveal that he applied for asylum in 2024 and was granted asylum in April 2025. His asylum status granted him protected status and eligibility for work permit, though his application for a full green card was reportedly still pending.“The suspect who shot our brave National Guardsmen is an Afghan national who was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration. I will not utter this depraved individual’s name. He should be starved of the glory he so desperately wants,” DHS secretary Kristi Noem said earlier.
Why was Lakanwal let inside the US?
CIA director John Ratcliffe confirmed that Lakanwal previously worked with the CIS in Afghanistan. “In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the US government, including CIA… The individual, and so many others, should have never been allowed to come here. Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration’s catastrophic failures,” he said.
