Vermont’s Afghan community is reeling from news this week that a fellow national has been accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., killing one of them.
Molly Gray, director of the Burlington-based Vermont Afghan Alliance, said there has been a palpable anxiety among local Afghans, who have been filling WhatsApp group chats with comments that reflect their collective shock over Wednesday’s attack.
“They’re outraged that this horrible act of violence occurred, and they’re deeply worried that they may be blamed,” Gray said in a phone call Friday.
Officials say Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, of Washington State, drove across the country to the nation’s capital and shot two West Virginia National Guard members who were deployed there. Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, has since died, officials say, while 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe remained in critical condition.
Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. in 2021 as part of a Biden-era program to resettle Afghan nationals whose work on behalf of the U.S. government made them targets of the Taliban. Officials say he was part of one of the CIA’s “Zero Units,” which were created early on in the Afghan war to combat terrorist groups and were used for night raids and secret missions.
Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, and his application was approved this year, national media outlets reported.
President Donald Trump has used the attack to justify escalating his ongoing immigration crackdown. In an address Wednesday night, he vowed to “reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that same day that it was pausing the processing of all immigration requests from Afghan nationals. The Department of Homeland Security then said that it had started a review of all asylum cases that had been approved under former President Joe Biden. And the agency’s director vowed to conduct a “rigorous reexamination” of every Green Card recipient from “countries of concern,” a list that includes not only Afghanistan but also 18 other countries from which travel is currently restricted.
The immigration statuses of some 600 Afghans who have resettled in Vermont since 2021 could now be in jeopardy.
Trump’s response to the attack has reverberated across refugee communities nationwide. Groups that work with Afghans say many are now worried about leaving their houses out of fear of getting scooped up by immigration authorities or harassed by their neighbors.
In a statement on Thursday, the Vermont Afghan Alliance strongly condemned the “horrific” act of violence. But it also called on Trump to not punish the entire Afghan community for the “act of one individual.”
“The President’s response is deeply harmful, and spreads misinformation about Afghan allies and veterans who risked everything for this country,” the statement said.
Gray, in a phone call, added that she fears the U.S. is hurtling toward another post-9/11 world, in which Muslims, and particularly Afghans, will be targeted.
“It is deeply, deeply concerning,” she said.