Former US Soldier Ahmad Shah Mohibi Criticizes Trump's Afghan Immigration Ban Following DC Shooting Incident

Former U.S. soldier Ahmad Shah Mohibi has voiced strong opposition to the Trump administration's comprehensive restrictions on Afghan immigrants following the Washington, DC shooting incident involving Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a suspect of Afghan origin.

Mohibi contends that Afghanistan is being unjustly blamed, asserting that the nation itself is not the source of the problem.

He elaborated that the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program was originally established to assist Afghan and Iraqi interpreters and translators who supported U.S. forces, but eventually broadened to include a much wider range of individuals.

Importantly, Lakanwal did not enter the United States through the SIV program. Instead, he arrived via former President Joe Biden's Operation Allies Welcome initiative, which was implemented after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's subsequent takeover. This program was designed to protect vulnerable Afghans escaping danger. Lakanwal had previously worked with the CIA and later applied for refugee status in 2024, receiving approval earlier this year during the Trump administration.

Following the shooting, President Donald Trump immediately suspended all Green Card processing for Afghan nationals, describing Afghanistan as a "hellhole" and ordered a comprehensive review of immigrants from 19 countries including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Mohibi strongly criticized the blanket targeting of Afghans, stating, "My point is just because he (Lakanwal) grabbed a gun and shot our soldiers does not mean the whole of the Afghan population is terrorists and everyone has to be penalised." He further noted that the chaotic 2021 evacuation, during which "US soldiers opened gates for all Afghans," created enduring issues. According to Mohibi, even aggressive enforcement measures would fail to address what he considers a fundamentally flawed system: "ICE can go house to house, but even 10 Donald Trumps won't be able to solve this problem because there is an immigration failure."

He attributed the issues to decades of mismanagement across political parties, saying, "They don't know what to do. There is a lottery programme, and there is an open border programme. Immigration in this country is not a Republican or Democratic problem. It is a broader systematic problem, and none of the presidents from Bush to Trump have any clue how to tackle immigration."

Afghan-American advocates expressed similar worries. Shawn VanDiver, president of the San Diego-based organization AfghanEvac, warned that the administration was using the incident to justify pre-existing policy objectives: "They are using a single violent individual as cover for a policy they have long planned, turning their own intelligence failures into an excuse to punish an entire community and the veterans who served alongside them."