What is Operation Allies Welcome, the program officials say brought the DC shooting suspect to the US?
By Lex Harvey, CNN
(CNN) — The suspect accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House came to the US through a Biden-era program to resettle Afghan nationals called Operation Allies Welcome, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday night.
Former President Joe Biden launched Operation Allies Welcome in August 2021 to protect vulnerable Afghans in the wake of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan and as the Taliban regained control of the country.
Noem said the suspect, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, arrived in the US on September 8, 2021. He applied for asylum in 2024 and was granted it the following year, under the Trump administration, multiple law enforcement officials told CNN.
Most Afghans who arrived under Operation Allies Welcome were allowed to enter and remain in the US for two years, with no permanent immigration status. More than 40% of the migrants admitted in the program were eligible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) because they took great risks to help the US, or were related to someone who did, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
One year later, the program was renamed “Enduring Welcome,” as the US pivoted to a long-term strategy focused on helping Afghans with SIVs and through the existing US refugee admissions program.
Over 190,000 Afghans have resettled in the US under both Operation Allies Welcome and Enduring Welcome, according to the State Department.
In recent years, the issue of resettling Afghans has become politically fraught, and application processing has slowed, leaving thousands of vulnerable people in limbo in third countries like Pakistan.
An estimated 260,000 Afghans have applied to come to the US and are still waiting, according to Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, an organization which relocates and resettles Afghan people. Many of them are in Afghanistan and face persecution by the Taliban, he told CNN.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump blamed Biden’s administration for letting in “20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners” to the US and called for a re-examination of every person who migrated from Afghanistan during the Biden presidency.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services also announced it would stop processing all immigration cases related to Afghan immigrants “indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” it said in a post on X.
Since taking office in January, Trump has enacted sweeping changes to US refugee policy and foreign assistance, cutting off thousands of Afghans who helped the US during the war from critical resources, as CNN has reported.
All Afghans who came to the US after the fall of Kabul have been subject to security screenings by intelligence, law enforcement and counterterrorism professionals. According to officials and experts, some evacuated Afghans were vetted multiple times – before leaving Afghanistan and again in transit countries before arriving in the US.
As CNN reported earlier this week, the Trump administration was already in the process of re-interviewing Afghan migrants who had been resettled in the US.
VanDiver urged the public not to demonize all Afghans because of the alleged choices of one individual – whose motive has not yet been identified.
“We’ve got so many people who are here, and one guy doing this does not mean that all Afghan families are troublemakers or terrorists.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Rhea Mogul contributed reporting.
