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We look at President Trump's call to pause all asylum decisions after an Afghan man who once worked for the CIA opened fire near the White House last Wednesday, shooting two National Guard members, killing one. Rahmanullah Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a program that saw the U.S. evacuate thousands of Afghans who faced reprisals from the Taliban over their work with the U.S. and the former U.S.-backed government.
Trump has since said that he will "permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries." Afghan refugees have "been stuck in limbo in the United States, and now they're being targeted by President Trump's political stunts," says Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac. Laila Ayub, executive director of Project ANAR, says the Trump administration is using the tragedy to "scapegoat and collectively punish an entire community."
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Speaker Mike Johnson put the president on speakerphone during a Monday stop in the state, underscoring the unusual amount of national attention on a House special election.
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The Tories have accused the government of lying about the state of the public finances ahead of the Budget.
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Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the man who authorities say shot two National Guardsmen outside the White House, had previously worked in a CIA-backed "Zero Unit" in Afghanistan, often called "death squads" by human rights groups. "The United States made this person into a child soldier, and now is experiencing what I think is one of the most horrifically bright-line cases of imperial blowback that we've seen throughout the 'war on terror,'" says Spencer Ackerman, journalist and author focused on U.S. military and foreign policy.
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President Trump has announced plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States. In 2024, Hernández was convicted in New York of drug trafficking and weapons charges. "The evidence from the Southern District of New York was overwhelming," says Dana Frank, professor of history emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a longtime observer of Honduran politics.
Trump's announcement came on Friday, and he also threatened to cut off funding if Hondurans did not elect his chosen conservative candidate as they went to the polls Sunday to pick a new president. "He's almost threatening Honduras that if we don't do what he is demanding … he will wreak vengeance against Honduras," says Rodolfo Pastor, former secretary of the presidency under Xiomara Castro in Honduras.
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President Trump's statements on social media less than 24 hours apart showed the dissonance in his campaign against drug trafficking.
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