Kristi Noem lit the fuse Monday night, using a fatal shooting in the nation’s capital to demand the most sweeping US travel ban in a generation. Hours after meeting with President Donald Trump, the homeland security secretary took to X with a message that echoed both his language and his political instincts: shut the door, everywhere, all at once.
Noem claimed she told the president the United States needs a “full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.” She framed the proposal less as policy and more as a patriotic correction, insisting the country was built by “forefathers” and not, as she put it, “foreign invaders.”
She never named the countries she wants blocked. The Department of Homeland Security offered only a terse follow-up on Tuesday, saying a list is coming soon. But the vagueness was the point. The outrage was the message.
Her call followed the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC, an attack that killed one and left the other in critical condition. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who arrived in the United States in 2021 during the mass resettlement that followed the US withdrawal from Kabul. He was granted asylum earlier this year under the Trump administration.
Trump seized on the case immediately. The day after the attack he vowed to “permanently pause migration from all third world countries.” By Friday, the State Department had stopped issuing visas to anyone holding an Afghan passport. Noem’s demand, dropped days later, signaled an escalation that the White House embraced.
Karoline Leavitt, the president’s press secretary, told Fox News that Trump supports Noem’s call and reminded viewers he previously announced a travel ban on 19 countries. She suggested the new plan could grow even larger. “Coming to the US is a privilege,” she said. “If you don’t respect our laws and our people you are not welcome here.”
The administration has already launched what it describes as a full review of asylum decisions approved during Joe Biden’s presidency. DHS has not said whether the process targets only Afghan cases or nationals from every country.
In recent months, Trump’s immigration agenda has hardened into a blueprint of bans, suspensions, and blanket denials. In June, the administration enacted a full travel ban on visitors from 12 countries, most in Africa and the Middle East, and imposed partial restrictions on seven more. Legal challenges are mounting, echoing the chaotic battles over Trump’s 2017 travel ban that clogged airports, split families, and dragged through courts before a narrow supreme court majority upheld it.
