President Trump Says The Sustainable Pause Will Last A Long Time

US President Donald Trump. (Wikimedia Commons/The White House/Daniel Torok)

JAKARTA - United States President Donald Trump said on Sunday his administration intends to maintain a hiatus of asylum decisions for "long time" after an Afghan national allegedly shot two members of the National Guard near the White House, killing one of them last week.

When asked to determine how long the pause would take, President Trump said he "does not have a time limit" in his mind for the measure, which the Department of Homeland Security said was related to the list of 19 countries already facing US travel restrictions.

"We don't want those people," said President Trump, launching Al Arabiya from AFP (1/12).

"You know why we don't want them? Because many have done evil, and they shouldn't be in our country," he said.

Earlier, the Trump Administration announced the pause following the shooting in Washington on November 26, which killed National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom (26) and left her partner injured and in critical condition.

An Afghan citizen Rahmanullah Lakanwal (29) was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the incident.

Lakanwal was once part of a CIA-backed "partner force" fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and entered the United States as part of a re-residential program following the withdrawal of the American military from Afghanistan in 2021.

Lakanwal was granted asylum in April 2025, under the Trump Administration, but officials blamed what they called a weak examination by the previous administration, Joe Biden, for his entry to US soil during Afghanistan's air evacuation.

President Trump wrote after the shooting, he plans to "discontinue permanent migration from all Third-World Countries so that the US system can fully recover."

When asked which citizenship would be affected, the Department of Homeland Security showed AFP a list of 19 countries -- including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, and Myanmar -- all of whom since June have faced travel restrictions to the United States.