Bay Area Afghans Grow Worried as Trump Targets Immigration After DC Shooting

Afghan American leaders in the Bay Area are increasingly worried that last week’s shooting of two National Guard members near the White House will spark a political backlash against Afghan evacuees nationwide.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who served in a CIA-backed strike force in Afghanistan before being evacuated to the U.S. in 2021, is accused of killing Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and wounding Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe. Leaders of the Bay Area’s Afghan community said they were horrified by the attack.

Fremont is home to one of the largest Afghan populations in the U.S., but across the Bay Area, Afghan Americans said they are already feeling the fervor surrounding the case.

Afghan American Foundation Board Chair Joseph Azam of Oakland said the community is concerned that the alleged actions of one man will now be used to justify broad restrictions on immigration.

“As Americans, anybody who doesn’t start with the horror of what happened is missing the gravity of this moment,” Azam said. “But there’s also fear. People are nervous for their safety because political rhetoric comes with real danger.”

Speaking to reporters after the shooting, President Trump vacillated from suggesting the suspect might have gone “cuckoo” to arguing he was not properly vetted. He went on to insult a CBS reporter who tried to ask why his own administration had recently described the evacuee vetting process as thorough.

At one point, he launched into familiar anti-immigrant rhetoric, describing them as criminals and a national security threat, saying: “For the most part, we don’t want them.”

In the wake of the shooting, the Trump administration said it would halt the processing of Afghan immigration applications. Azam said many in the community worry that the federal response signals a return to the suspicion and xenophobia that Middle Easterners and others faced after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I’m hearing a sense that we’re going back in time, to darker periods when communities have been scapegoated, targeted and used as political pawns,” he said.

State Sen. Aisha Wahab (D–Hayward), the first Afghan American elected to the California Legislature, called the attacks on National Guard members on U.S. soil “disheartening.”

Wahab said that while many questions remain for investigators, it’s clear that Afghans undergo some of the most rigorous security screening of any immigrant population, such as biometric data and interagency scrutiny.

“The mere fact of this incident taking place should not be used as an excuse by political parties to demonize immigrants,” Wahab said.

She noted that Afghans who worked alongside U.S. forces did so under extraordinary circumstances — and at great personal risk — after being promised a path to safety for themselves and their immediate families. Many, she said, are still coping with trauma from decades of war. She called for a balanced response.

“There are individuals that will have mental health issues, that will have PTSD, that will have a lot of other concerns,” Wahab said, “but we also are a nation built by immigrants. And we need to honor that and make sure that people feel welcomed and supported and treated equally.”

Azam said approximately 80% of recent Afghan arrivals are working, with many employed at major American companies or serving in the U.S. military. Halting their progress because of one violent act, he said, would be “a tough pill to swallow.”

He called on national leaders in both parties to return to the bipartisan cooperation that once guided Afghan resettlement, pointing to the 2021 testimony of Trump’s former national security advisor-turned United Nations ambassador, Mike Waltz.

Waltz, the first Green Beret elected to the U.S. House, appeared before Congress alongside one of his former Afghan interpreters as he urged the Biden White House to take care of its allies as the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“We need to ask ourselves, as Americans, what message are we sending in terms of keeping our promises, not only with the Afghans, but again, around the world?” Waltz testified. “The bottom line is, we need to get them out. We have a moral obligation to get them out. This is not just a moral obligation, but it is a national security obligation.”

Azam said the answer to one heinous act is not collective punishment: “I hope cooler heads prevail.”