The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that this would “allow the US system to fully recover” from policies that had eroded the “gains and living conditions” of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.
His comments came a day after an Afghan national was accused of shooting two members of the National Guard in Washington DC, one of whom has died. Trump suggested the incident underlined a major national security threat.
The president’s subsequent announcements represent a further toughening of his stance on immigration.
In the wake of the shooting, he promised to remove from the US any foreigner “from any country who does not belong here”. The same day, the US suspended processing all immigration requests from Afghans, saying the decision was made pending a review of “security and vetting protocols”.
Then on Thursday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it would re-examine green cards issued to individuals who had migrated to the US from 19 countries. The announcement did not explicitly mention Wednesday’s attack.
When asked by the BBC which countries were on the list, the agency pointed to a June proclamation by the White House that included Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia and Venezuela.
There were no further details about what the re-examination would look like.
Trump’s strongly worded two-part post on Thursday night went further, pledging to “end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens”.
(BBC)
