After a gunman shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 26, 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that the Trump administration had granted the shooting suspect, identified by officials as an Afghan national, asylum months earlier.
The gunman launched an "ambush style" shooting attack the Guard troops near Washington's Farragut Square, located minutes from the White House. U.S. President Donald Trump was in Florida at the time of the shooting.
Trump said during a call with U.S. service members the following day that Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries. The other shooting victim, 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remained hospitalized in critical condition at the time of this writing, according to reliable news reports.
One X user who shared the claim about the suspect's asylum status wrote: "MAJOR BREAKING: MAGA is stunned into silence as officials confirm the National Guard shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, entered the U.S. in 2021 and was vetted and granted LEGAL ASYLUM by the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION in April 2025."
The claim also spread on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in asking whether the claim was true.
Major news outlets including Reuters, CNN, CBS and The New York Times all reported that U.S. authorities had granted the shooting suspect, identified by officials as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, asylum in the U.S. in April 2025. Reuters attributed this information to a "government file" seen by the outlet, and CNN, CBS and the Times all cited anonymous government sources.
The Associated Press attributed its reporting that Lakanwal received asylum in April 2025 to #AfghanEvac, a charity that works with the U.S. government to resettle eligible Afghan residents in the U.S. following the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The group's director, Shawn VanDiver, told Snopes via email that #AfghanEvac got its information from anonymous U.S. government sources.
On Nov. 27, Trump did not directly answer a reporter's question about whether his administration granted Lakanwal asylum. Trump said, "When it comes to asylum, when they're flown in, it's very hard to get them out. No matter how you want to do it, it's very hard to get them out. But we're going to be getting them all out now."
Snopes does not rely on anonymous sources in our reporting. We were unable to independently verify the claim that the Trump administration granted Lakanwal asylum roughly seven months before the fatal shooting in Washington, D.C. Therefore, we leave this claim unrated.
We reached out to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles asylum applications, and the U.S. State Department, which ran the Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts that worked to resettle eligible Afghan citizens after the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan, to ask them to confirm the claims about Lakanwal's asylum status. We await replies to our queries.
Biden-era program allowed suspect into US
According to Homeland Security Kristi Secretary Noem, Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2021, around a week after the U.S. completed its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
Noem said Lakanwal came to the U.S. under "Operation Allies Welcome," a Biden administration effort to support "vulnerable" Afghans and those who had worked with American troops in Afghanistan to resettle in the U.S.
In a statement (archived) reported by ABC News' Jay O'Brien on X, CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly said Lakanwal worked with "the U.S. Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar."
According to a fact sheet about "Operation Allies Welcome," most Afghans who authorities allowed access to the U.S. "as part of the evacuation effort" would be paroled for humanitarian reasons "for a period of two years."
The USCIS said on its website that humanitarian parole allowed an individual temporary lawful presence in the U.S. but did not grant "immigration status or a path to lawful permanent residence (a Green Card holder) or another lawful immigration status."
The #AfghanEvac group said Lakanwal was in the early stages of getting a Special Immigrant Visa, though the group could not confirm when he submitted this application. Afghan-SIV applicants must fulfill various criteria that include having worked with U.S. or international security forces "for a period of at least 12 months between October 7, 2001, and December 31, 2024."
A successful Afghan-SIV application would grant the applicant permanent legal status in the U.S. and a path to U.S. citizenship. It was unclear whether Lakanwal's application was successful, though he would not have needed to apply for asylum, as he reportedly did in 2024, if it was.
News reports did not account for how Lakanwal remained in the U.S. between 2023, when a two-year humanitarian parole through "Operation Allies Welcome" would have expired, and 2024, when he reportedly filed his application for asylum that was allegedly granted in 2025. Asylum grants the holder a pathway to permanent residence in the form of a green card, which could eventually be converted to citizenship.
Suspect faced murder charge
On Nov. 28, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office said it would charge Lakanwal with one count of first-degree murder, two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Authorities had not confirmed what led to the shooting. Lakanwal reportedly lived in Washington state with his wife and five children.
Following the shooting, USCIS immediately stopped processing (archived) "all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals" in order to review security and vetting protocols.
On the afternoon of the shooting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he would order an additional 500 National Guard soldiers to be stationed in Washington, D.C.