DC Guard shooting: JD Vance renews call for mass deportations of Afghans

Washington: US Vice President JD Vance on Thursday used the ambush shooting of two National Guard members near the White House to renew his demand for large-scale deportations of Afghan refugees who came to America after the Kabul evacuation. 

Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were critically wounded on Wednesday in what authorities described as a targeted attack in central Washington, just blocks from the White House. The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was also shot and taken into custody. 

Officials said Lakanwal entered the US in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden-era programme that brought tens of thousands of Afghans to America after the Taliban takeover. He later obtained asylum in 2025, under the current Trump administration, according to social media posts and local reports. 

Vance revives 2021 warnings on Afghan resettlement

Posting on X in the early hours of Thursday, Vance said the shooting vindicated his earlier opposition to the rapid resettlement of Afghan refugees.

“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,” he wrote, adding: “They shouldn’t have been in our country.”

In a follow-up post, the vice president called for tougher action beyond condemnation.

“Many of our voters will demand not just words, but action… 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,” he said, while attacking “corporate media” criticism of his stance.

Earlier, Vance had described the two Guardsmen as “the best in the world” and urged people to pray for them, calling the attack a “brutal reminder” of the risks faced by US soldiers.

Critics say Vance is scapegoating refugees

Vance’s comments triggered an immediate backlash from Democrats and refugee advocates, who accused him of using an individual criminal case to stigmatise an entire community.

Democratic influencer Harry Sisson pointed out that while Lakanwal first arrived under Operation Allies Welcome in 2021, his asylum was approved in April 2025, under the current Trump–Vance administration, and urged against “demonizing an entire group because of one person.”

Rights groups warned that tying the Washington attack directly to the broader Afghan refugee population could fuel anti-immigrant sentiment and increase risks for Afghans already facing deportation pressure in the US and elsewhere.

Conservative outlets, meanwhile, amplified Vance’s line of attack, highlighting that more than 70,000 Afghans were brought in under the Biden-era programme and questioning the robustness of vetting procedures at the time. 

Some right-wing figures went further, calling for measures such as a renewed “Muslim ban” and even harsh punitive steps, drawing criticism from civil liberties groups for inflammatory rhetoric.

Shooting deepens fight over Trump’s DC deployment

The ambush itself has already become a flashpoint in a wider debate over the Trump administration’s deployment of federal forces and National Guard troops to Washington as part of a broader “crime emergency” drive. 

Roughly 2,200 Guard members were already stationed in the capital before the attack. After the shooting, President Donald Trump ordered an additional 500 Guard troops to the city, with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth saying the move was in direct response to Wednesday’s incident. 

Trump called the gunman an “animal” on Truth Social and vowed he would “pay a very steep price”, even as investigators said they were still working to establish Lakanwal’s motive. 

The continued deployment of troops in Washington has been challenged in court by civil liberties groups, who argue that long-term federalisation of policing and heavy military presence in civilian areas set a dangerous precedent. A federal judge recently ordered an end to the deployment but allowed a short window for the administration to appeal or withdraw forces, keeping the issue live even before Wednesday’s attack.

Refugee vetting back in focus

The shooting has now pushed refugee vetting back to the centre of US political debate. Biden officials had previously defended Operation Allies Welcome as a moral and strategic obligation to Afghans who worked with US forces, insisting that arrivals were subject to security checks. At the same time, internal reviews acknowledged that in-person interviews were not conducted in all cases due to the speed and scale of the evacuation.

With Lakanwal in custody and the two Guardsmen still in critical condition, Washington is bracing for a fresh round of partisan clashes over how the US balances security, moral responsibility and the treatment of refugees – a debate that now stretches from the streets near the White House to state capitals and campaign trails across the country.