November 28, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of Daily Story Brief, the hosts unpack a tragedy in the heart of Washington, D.C. that spirals from a shocking ambush into a full-blown immigration and national security crisis. Two West Virginia National Guard soldiers are targeted near Farragut Square the day before Thanksgiving, leaving Specialist Sarah Beckstrom dead and Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe fighting for his life. The conversation begins with the grim details of the attack and the controversial National Guard deployment they were serving on—a mission a federal judge had just ruled likely illegal before putting the order on hold.From there, the episode digs into the background of the alleged shooter, Ramanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who drove across the country to carry out what the FBI is calling an act of domestic terrorism. The hosts trace his path into the United States through Operation Allies Welcome, his long service in CIA-backed Afghan “Zero Units,” and the serious human rights allegations that surrounded those forces. They examine reporting that suggests Lakanwal was a trusted counterterrorism asset but also someone marked by extreme trauma, loss and moral injury, raising hard questions about what happened after he was granted asylum.The story then shifts to the political explosion that followed. The episode walks through how the administration immediately framed the shooting as proof of a broken immigration system, even as facts emerged that his asylum had been approved only months earlier. Listeners hear how the attack was used to justify sweeping new measures: halting all Afghan immigration processing, promising to “pause” migration from so-called third world countries, launching a retroactive review of green cards from 19 nations, and dramatically ramping up interior enforcement using multi-agency street arrests meant to be impossible to ignore.Alongside these policies, the hosts track the rhetoric that accompanied them—from confrontations with journalists to hardline claims that mass migration and assimilation have “failed.” They bring in historians, policy experts and advocates to put those arguments in historical context, connecting them to earlier waves of anti-immigrant fear and to the legal concept of collective punishment. The Afghan American community’s response, UN warnings about international law, and the everyday reality of heightened raids, financial scrutiny and neighborhood alarm round out the picture.Ultimately, this episode is not just about one horrific shooting. It’s about what happens when a single act of violence involving a former U.S. ally becomes the catalyst for a fundamental shift in immigration policy. The hosts leave listeners with the uncomfortable, central question that now hangs over U.S. strategy: after relying on paramilitary partners like the Zero Units for years, how should America balance its moral obligation to protect those allies with its responsibility to safeguard domestic security—and what does that balance look like in practice when fear and politics collide?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (01:00):
Welcome to the Daily Story Brief We're opening today with
a story that is just a profound tragedy in the
nation's capital.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's a tragedy that has moved with just stunning speed.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Stanning speed. Yeah, from what seemed at first like a
local crime investigation to a global inflection point.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It really is. It sparked these immediate and frankly sweeping
national policy changes that could redefine immigration in America for
well for decades to come.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So our mission today is to really get into the facts.
We need to understand the shooting itself, the surprising and
very complex background of the manic cused.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And then we have to analyze the resulting government crackdown.
It's a set of actions that targets not just the suspect,
but entire global communities.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Okay, so let's start at the beginning. We have to
begin with the grim details of the ambush itself. This
happened right in the heart of Washington, d C. It
was around two point one five in the afternoon on Wednesday,
November twenty six, twenty twenty five, right near the Farragut
Square metro station.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
A very busy area, and the victims were two members
of the National Guard. They were serving on what was
already a very controversial deployment in the city.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
We'll get to that controversy in a minute, but let's
focus on the victims first.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Of course, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who is just twenty years old,
and Staff's strad Andrew Wolfe, who is twenty four, both
from the West Virginia.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
National Guard, and this was the day before Thanksgiving. The
city was already kind of slowing down for the holiday.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Exactly, and the outcome was just heartbreaking. Specialist Beckstrom, she'd
only entered service in June of twenty twenty three. She
was so new to it, so young, and she died
from her injuries the next day on Thanksgiving Day. Her
father confirmed the news online. It's just devastating.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And Staff's tripwolf he's.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
A longer serving member, started back in February twenty nineteen.
He remains in the hospital in critical conditions.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So US attorney Janine Piro, she characterized this as a
as an ambush style attack.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yes, the suspect was a lone gunman and he was
armed with a p iin three five seven Smith and Wesson.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Revolver, So this wasn't random, this was planned.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It indicates a deliberate lethal intent.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Absolutely. Fortunately there was another National Guard member nearby who
was able to respond almost immediately.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
And he took the suspect down.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
He shot the suspect four times. The suspect is currently
hospitalized in serious condition. But you know, the legal process
that began moving instantly.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And the moment Specialist Beckstrom passed away, the legal stakes
just shot up.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Absolutely. The initial charges were assault with intent to kill.
The second she died, those were instantly upgraded to first
degree murder.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Impiro made it very clear where the Justice Department stood
on this, Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Absolutely. She spoke alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi, and she
framed it as a premeditated assassination attempt on members of
the Armed services.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Her quote was that the suspect ambushed people who didn't.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Know what was coming exactly. And they've already publicly stated
that they will see the death penalty if staff Regwolf
doesn't survive, as if injuries.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
On top of all that, the FBI is treating the
whole incident as an act of domestic terrorism, which is
a very significant designation. It opens up a whole different
level of investigation and potential charges.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It's crucial I think for you to understand the political
atmosphere these soldiers were operating in, because this wasn't some
standard deployment.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
No, not at all. They were part of what's called
the DC Task Force. This was a contingent of nearly
twenty two hundred National Guard troops and.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They were deployed back in August twenty twenty five by
the President.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Himself, right after he declared a crime emergency in DC.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And that deployment was, to put it mildly, a political
powder keg. Even before this shooting happened.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It absolutely was. The DC Attorney General had already challenged
the legality of it in federal court.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
What was the basis of that challenge?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
The argument centered on the idea that the president was
using the National Guard for routine law enforcement roles, things
that you know, fall outside their traditional scope.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Violated the city's right to self government precisely.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It was a major constitutional showdown.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
So what was the status of that legal challenge Right
before the ambush happened, Where did it stand?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It was literally hanging in the balance. Just a few
days before the shooting, a federal district judge had delivered
a pretty significant blow to the administration.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
The judge ruled against the deployment.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
The ruling said the deployment was likely illegal, that it
represented an overreach of executive authority.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Wow, so a federal judge essentially declared the mission invalid.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
But here's the key part. The enforcement of that ruling,
the order to actually pull the troops out was temporarily paused.
Why it was paused until December eleventh to give the
administration time to file an appeal. So these Guard members,
like specialist exstrum and staffs were at wolf. They were
operating in DC under this huge cloud of legal contention.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So you have a deployment that a federal judge believes
is unconstitutional, and then that very deployment is specifically targeted
in a violent attack.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yes, it's an almost unbelievable confluence of events.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So what was the administration's immediate response to that, to
this direct escalation.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Well, despite the legal battle, despite the tragic proof that
these troops were now targets, the President chose to double.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Down, double downhill.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
He immediately ordered an additional five hundred National Guard members
to DC.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So he increased the deployment, increased.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
It, raising the total to nearly twenty seven hundred troops.
It was a move that explicitly signaled his defiance of
the legal challenge. He was escalating the very mission a
judge had just called illegal.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Okay, so that's the context. Now we have to unpack
who the shooter is, because this is where the incident
really shifts from a tragedy into this incredibly complicated national
security and policy crisis.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
The suspect's name is Ramanola Lochenwall. He's twenty nine years old,
an Afghan national.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
And here's the first strange detail. He didn't live locally.
He drove across the entire country from his home in
Washington State, specifically to carry out this attack.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
In the capital, across the entire country.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yes, and his identity, and even more critically, the way
he entered the US that became the immediate focus of
all the political fallout.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
He came here through a very specific program created after
the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was called Operation Allies
Welcome exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
He entered in September of twenty twenty one. Under ow
This program was I mean, it was essentially a humanitarian effort.
It was designed to rapidly relocate Afghan nationals who had
worked with and often risked their lives for US forces.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And OEW brought in a massive number of people.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Roughly seventy six thousand Afghans came to the US through
that program, and the current administration has been criticizing it
basically since day one, claiming it had lacks vetting standards.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Although, and we should be clear about this, proponents of
OW always pushed back on that. They stress that these
Afghan allies were subjected to extensive security screening.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh. Absolutely, multiple intelligence agencies, law enforcement bodies like the FBI, DHS,
they were all involved in that screening process.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It was a balance right between urgency and security.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
That was the idea. But here's the key fact that
immediately blew up the political narrative. Initially, you had sources
in the administration claiming that Luckenwall had overstated a visa
or that he was in the country illegally.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Right, that was the initial report.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
But then consistent reporting confirmed something else entirely. While he
had applied for asylum during the previous administration, his asylum
status was officially granted by the Trump administration in April
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Let's just pause on that for a second. That is
that's politically explosive. It is the shooting is being used
as exhibit a that the previous administration's vetting failed, but
the shooter's actual legal status his asylum was formally approved
by the current administration just seven months ago.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The irony is just profound. It completely undercuts the immediate
narrative that this was all a consequence of the chaotic
withdrawal in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It forces the administration to confront the idea that their
own vetting processes conducted very recently, cleared this man for
permanent residence.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It pivots the narrative. It shifts the focus from a
potential failure in twenty twenty one to a potential failure
in twenty twenty five. Or maybe it suggests the problem
is just far more complex than a simple lacks vetting
slogan can capture.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And the complexity it just keeps deepening when you look
at why he was eligible for this program in the
first place. He wasn't just some translator. He had specific
high level ties to US counter terrorism operations, specifically with
the CIA.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
And this was confirmed publicly by the CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
He stated that Lockinwall's admission was explicitly and this is
a quote, due to his prior work with the US government,
including CIA, and he.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Served in a very specialized, highly kinetic Afghan army unit.
They were known as the Zero.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Units or the Scorpion Forces, they had a few names.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We really need to spend some time on these Zero
Units because for you the listener, to really understand Lockinwell's
profile and the significance of his whole trajectory, you need
to know what kind of entity this was. These weren't
regular army forces, were they.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
No, not at all. The Zero Units were paramilitary groups.
They were highly secretive, and they operated under the direction
and crucially the financing of the CIA.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So they were strike forces.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's what they were often called. They were tasked with
these very aggressive counter terrorism and counter insurgency operations, primarily
targeting the Taliban, but operating way outside the traditional military
chain of command, so.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
They were essentially a covert extension of US intelligence on
the ground in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That is exactly the operational model. And Lackinwall was specifically
recruited to Unit three of the Kandahar Strike Force, and.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
He had been with them for a long time.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
A very long time. He started way back in twenty
twelve just as a security guard, so that shows this
long term loyalty, this deep integration with the US effort.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
He was promoted over time, yes.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Eventually becoming a team leader and a GPS specialist. And
just for context, on his final serve, reports indicate he
was helping guard US forces at the chaotic Kabul airport
perimeter during that twenty twenty one evacuation.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So he was a trusted insider, a front line operative.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Absolutely, But the shadow that surrounds these units is immense.
When we talk about them, we have to acknowledge the
severe allegations that were leveled against them by international human
rights watchdogs for years.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And this is really the darkest, most complicated part of
this entire story.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It is for years organizations like Human Rights Watch they
consistently scrutinize the zero units. They often just outright labeled
them death squads.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And the allegations aren't minor. We're talking about systematic.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Abuses, yes, abuses that violate international humanitarian law. We're talking
about serious crimes like extra judicial executions.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Meaning killings carried out without any legal process.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Exactly They're also accused of enforced disappearances, basically making people
vanish without a trace, which creates this terror in local populations,
and indiscriminated attacks, yes, including airstres the hit civilian targets,
and even medical facilities. There is a huge Human Rights
Watch report back in twenty nineteen that specifically documented these
patterns of abuse, and.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
The report noted that because these units were backed by
the CIA and operated outside conventional military oversight, they often
acted with impunity, there.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Was no accountability. So this is the man ram Noula
la Kanwell. He was a highly valued long term ally,
but he was operating inside a US backed structure that
critics viewed as inherently brutal and accountable to no one.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This is not the profile of a simple refugee fleeing
a war. It's the profile of a high risk, high
trauma asset.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
It really is, and it creates this deep moral and
ethical conundrum for the US government. How so you rely
on these forces to do the dirty work in a
chaotic war zone. You promised them safety and refuge in
return for their service.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That's the very nature of that job.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The nature of that job exposes them to profound trauma,
It forces them into actions that can shatter them psychologically.
So when Lockinwall arrives in the US, he doesn't just
bring his loyalty, He brings years of exposure to state
sanctioned violence and all the mental baggage from the front line.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Which brings us to the question of motive. US Attorney
Piero She declined to discuss it, but investigators have to
be looking at what tipped him, what turned him from
a US granted asylum seeker into a terrorist attacker.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
And sources confirmed they are intensely focused on his psychological state.
Even the President, in his characteristically blunt way, weighed in
on it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
What did he say?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
He suggested Lockanwall went cuckoo and went nuts after the war.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Crude, but it points to a recognition that trauma might
be a factor.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
It does, and a US official provided some more concrete insight.
They confirmed Lackenwall had been deeply disturbed by the exceptionally
high number of casualties his zero units suffered overseas.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
These units were in constant, high intensity combat constantly.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
The loss rates were just staggering, and that kind of
loss takes a toll.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Was there a more recent trigger something that might have
pushed him over the edge.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It seems so. The sources indicate that Lackenwall was recently
and very deeply troubled by the killing of a close
friend overseas.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So it's the cascading series of traumatic events.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
That's what it looks like. Years of intense combat trauma,
may be compounded by guilt or regret over his unit's
alleged actions, and then a recent, very personal loss that
may have pushed him past a breaking point.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So what emerges is this profile of an Afghan ally
who helped guard US forces, who was granted asylum by
the current government, but who seems to have been suffering
from this profound, undiagnosed or untreated psychological distress that finally
culminated in this horrific act of violence.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
It is a profoundly difficult and layered context.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
And yet the second his identity was confirmed, the political
machine just immediately seized on the simplest possible narrative, immigration failure.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The reaction from the administration was instant and maximalist did
used the shooting to validate his entire hardline stance on immigration.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You called it a heinous assault.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
A heinous assault that, in his words, proves that lax
migration policies are the single greatest national security threat facing
our nation.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And he wasn't subtle about assigning blame either. He repeatedly
cited these huge figures about previous administration.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Not at all. He repeatedly faulted the Biden administration for
letting in what he claimed to were twenty million unknown
and unvetted foreigners. He created this impression that Lockenwall was
some unvetted illegal entrant, despite all the confirmed facts we
just discussed.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Despite his CIA ties, despite his twenty twenty five asylum grant.
Exactly beyond the policy rhetoric, his personal response to the
tragedy of Special Specstrum's death that drew some really sharp criticism.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
It was startlingly abrupt. When a reporter asked if he
planned to attend her funeral, his response was, well, it
was highly politicized what happened. He gave a kind of
noncommittal answer at first, but then he immediately pivoted to
bragging about his electoral success in her home state. He said,
I love West Virginia. You know, I won West Virginia
(16:07):
by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, being asked about the funeral of a soldier from
that state.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yes, and commentators immediately seized on this as a moment
of just extreme disconnect.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
The response suggested a total inability to center on her sacrifice.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
It turned her death into an opportunity for self aggrandizement.
Political commentators like Tom Nichols called it a demented, malignant,
narcissist moment, arguing that even in the face of this
national tragedy, the focus couldn't be removed from the president's
own popularity.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It highlighted this perceived lack of empathy that it almost
dominated the news cycle as much as the shooting itself.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
It did, and then there was a confrontation with CBS
News reporter Nancy Kord's which just further cemented the administration's
defensiveness over this whole vetting issue.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Right what happened there?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, Cordis challenged the president's claims. She specifically cited a
Department of Justice Inspector General report that had found that
the Afghan arrivals, including those under OEW, did receive thorough
vetting by Homeland Security and the FBI.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So she was using the government's own findings to question
his narrative, and.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
His reaction was incredibly aggressive. He publicly lashed out at her, demanding,
are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? It was
a really clear example of the administration just refusing to
let facts, even their own confirmed government reports, interfere with
the political utility of the crisis.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
And if we move from the President's remarks to his
advisor Stephen Miller, the rhetoric intensified even more. It moved
beyond a specific policy critique into these these broader, more
aggressive claims about assimilation itself.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Miller's comments were chillingly explicit. He was responding to this
wave of criticism that was urging against collective punishment for
the Afghan community, and.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
He just dismissed the whole idea of successful large scale migration.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
He did. He wrote that the mass migration is the
great lie. He argued, and I'm quoting here. You are
not just importing individuals, you are importing societies. No magic
transformation occurs when failed states cross borders at scale, migrants
and their descendants recreate the conditions and terrors of their
broken homelands.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
He called assimilation fundamentally impossible.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
He did, and that is an overtly xenophobic and historically
loaded argument.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So how did historians and policy professors respond to that
specific line.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Of attack with immediate and forceful condemnation, Mostly by connecting
it to historical precedent. Scholars pointed out that Miller's comments
were almost word for word identical to the rhetoric used
by xenophobes in the US back in the nineteen thirties
and forties. He's coup against immigrants fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. Specifically,
they pointed out, this was the rhetoric used against Miller's
(18:51):
own Jewish ancestors.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
So the historical parallel is that this idea that migrants
bring the terrors of their broken homeland, this is just
a recurring anti immigrant trope. It's been used against virtually
every non Western group that has sought refuge here exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Don moynihan, a policy professor at the University of Michigan.
He noted that this rhetoric is deeply at odds with
the vision and history of America, which is fundamentally built
on assimilation and change. The analysis was clear, this wasn't
a new policy critique. This was an attempt to justify
a new deep skepticism of multiculturalism, using the DC tragedy
(19:29):
as cover.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So amidst this firestorm of political rhetoric, how did the
Afghan community in the US react. They're caught in the
middle of all of this.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
They move very quickly to try and manage the crisis.
Afghan organizations swiftly condemned the attack as deeply tragic. They
emphasize very strongly that Locke Andwall does not represent the broader,
law abiding Afghan community, a.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Community that risk everything to support the US exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
The Afghan Community Coalition of United States called for a
full investigation, but made this desperate plea to the government
not to suspend all immigran claims.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
They were essentially saying, don't forget the twenty years of partnership.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Great precisely, they said, twenty years of Afghan US partnership
must not be forgotten. Advocacy groups like AFGHANIVAC they were
very vocal in warning against using the attack for collective punishment.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And let's spend a moment on that term collective punishment
for listeners who might not be familiar with the specific
legal meaning. Why is the Afghan community using that exact phrase.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
It's a term that's often used in international law, and
its core meaning is assigning guilt or a penalty to
an entire group for the actions of a single individual
or a small group.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So they're saying the policy response punishes everyone for the
actions of one.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Person, exactly when they use it here, they're pointing out
that suspending immigration for all Afghans or reviewing the green
cards of people from nineteen different nations, it punishes hundreds
of thousands of innocent legal residents and applicants based entirely
on the actions of Rama Nola La Konwall. It violates
the basic principle that guilt has to be personal.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And despite those plays, the policy shift was well, it
was already underway.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It was immediate.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Let's detail the scope of this immigration crackdown that followed
the shooting.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
The very first action was laser focused on Afghanistan USCIS,
that's US Citizenship and Immigration Services immediately suspended the processing
of all immigration requests for Afghan national.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So special immigrant visa's asylum, all of it just stopped.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Everything came to a halt, pending a review of security
and vetting protocols. Now, this wasn't entirely new. Afghanistan was
already one of twelve countries included in a narrower travel
ban implemented earlier in the year.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
But the real scale of the policy change was revealed
on Thanksgiving Day. The President escalated the plan far beyond
just Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
That Thanksgiving social media post it basically became a manifesto
for a massive reversal of US migration policy. The President
announced plans to permanently pause migration from all third world
countries to allow the US system to fully recover.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
And the terminology there third World countries that is deeply loaded,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Absolutely. It's a term that's rooted in the Cold War era.
It's widely considered archaic, insensitive, derogatory.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
It lumps together most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
It does, and its use by the Head of States
signaled this deliberate and provocative rejection of modern diplomatic language.
It positioned all of these nations as inherently problematic sources
of migration, and the band.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Was also coupled with pledges to retroactively reverse previous decisions.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yes, he pledged to terminate all of the millions of
Biden illegal admissions, and crucially to remove anyone who is
not a net asset to the United States or is
incapable of loving our country.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
And then there was that last point about cultural compatibility.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Great he added this explicit ideological commitment deporting foreign nationals
who are noncompatible with Western civilization.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That's a shift from security or economic rationales to one
based on what cultural and ideological purity.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It's an unprecedented level of ideological screening in modern US
immigration policy, and the administration immediately moved to implement it
through this green card review of people from nineteen countries.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
This might be the most shocking part of the whole response,
targeting legal permanent residents, people who hold green cards.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
It's a huge shift. The USCIS director Joseph Edlow. He
announced a full scale, rigorous re examination of every green
card for every alien from every country of concern.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So people who went through the extensive process years ago,
who built lives here now face having their status reviewed
and maybe.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Revoked exactly based on a generalized national security concern tied
to their country of origin.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Can you walk us through the full list of countries
involved in this review.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
It is an extensive list. It covers three continents spans
nations dealing with conflict, political instability, or previous sanctions. Nineteen
nations in total.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And they're broken into two categories.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yes, all countries are designated as fully restricted. For them,
all immigration processing is suspended and all existing green cards
are under full review.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And those are.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan and Yemen.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That group seems to largely align with countries that have
been previously identified as face of concern for various reasons.
What about the partially restricted list?
Speaker 3 (24:29):
That list has seven countries, and it's also significant because
it shows the global sweep of this The seven are Burundi, Cuba, Laos,
Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And for them some visas might still be processed, but
all green card holders are subject to this re examination.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Which creates just immense instability for people who have built lives, homes,
businesses here under the assumption of permanent legal residency.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And the administration also leveraged its financial tools to restrict
movement right the scrutiny of cross border money transfers.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
That's right. The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FINSEN,
issued a formal alert. It urged all financial institutions, especially
money services businesses, the places people used to send money home,
to heighten.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Their scrutiny on what grounds.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
The justification was that individuals without legal status pose significant
threats to national security, and it framed remittances as potential
funding streams for smuggling and trafficking.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So this action serves two purposes. It adds a layer
of surveillance and it makes life much harder for undocumented
immigrants trying to support their families back home.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It creates a choke point, You raise transaction costs, you
create a fear of surveillance, and you disrupt one of
the most vital connections these communities have with their home countries.
It basically weaponizes the financial system against them.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So what was the international response to all of this?
The US using an isolated incident to justify such sweeping
mass restrictions.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Their response was one of dismay and appeals to international law.
Un agencies like the High Commissioner for Refugees publicly appealed
to Washington to honor its international commitments.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Specifically citing the nineteen fifty three Refugee Convention YES.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Which guarantees due process for asylum seekers and mandates non refellment,
the rule against sending refugees back into danger, and.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
The You and Human Rights Office. They specifically addressed the
justification the administration was using.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
They did. They force fully stressed that using an isolated
incident to justify mass restrictions is and I quote inconsistent
with evidence showing no link between refugee arrivals and increased crime.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
In other words, the data doesn't support the policy.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
They're saying, the policy is politically driven, not evidence based.
And domestically groups like CARER, the Council, and American Islamic
Relations they just reiterated their condemnation of the moves as
a form of collective punishment.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Okay, let's pivot now to what this means on the
ground for enforcement and for the lives of the people
being targeted. Lock and Wall is still hospitalized facing murder charges,
but the administration is now looking at his family.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Lock Andwall is facing the most severe charges possible. Authorities
have said there will be many more charges to come,
likely including terrorism statutes, but the administration has made it
very clear that the consequences will extend to his immediate family.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
What did the presidents say about them?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
He was asked about Lockewoll's wife and his five children
in Washington State. He was very direct, he said, we're
looking at that right now. We're looking at the whole
situation with family.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So they're exploring deporting them.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
The possibility of deporting his family, despite their lack of
involvement in the crime, is being actively explored. It's part
of the broader crackdown strategy, and.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
This incident is also serving as justification for a major
acceleration of immigration enforcement tactics nationwide. These new escalated operations,
what do they look like in cities across the US?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
They look profoundly different than traditional enforcement. The strategy has
shifted from passive enforcement, like arresting someone at a scheduled hearing,
to these highly aggressive, very public street arrests.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So agents are actively hunting people down.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
They're labeling them fugitives and tracking them down at their homes,
their workplaces, even outside of schools where they're dropping off
their children. It's designed to maximize visibility and intimidation.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And it's not just traditional immigration agencies like IC running
these operations.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
That is a critical detail. We are seeing massive deployments
involving agencies that normally focus on completely different areas like
KU Border Patrol, FBI and DEA agents, and they're being
deployed in cities far from the border, places like Chicago
and Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
And the problem is that many of these agents, who
might specialize in drug trafficking or organize crime, they don't
have the specific, nuanced training for civilian immigration law.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
The training is minimal. We're talking about a two week
immigration crash course. It's completely inadequate for the complexities of
identifying legal status, understanding due process, or navigating communitiesties.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
And this minimal training, combined with the reliance on profiling,
is leading to what sources are calling sloppy enforcement.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
It is. It's sloppy and it's scattershot, and there are
two major consequences to that.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
What's the first one.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
First, while they're making a high number of very public arrests,
the actual long term deportation's success rate is often lower
because the sloppy profiling means they frequently detain people who
are later discovered to have legal status.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So they're arresting legal residents and even US citizens, yes.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
People with valid visas, green cards, and in documented cases,
US citizens who get caught up in the dragnet because
of their appearance or the language they speak. They're arrested, detained,
and then eventually released. But the damage is done, and.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
The second consequence seems to align more with the strategic
goal the administration, which you're driving people out exactly.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
The tactics are highly public, aggressive and very scary. We
are seeing confrontations with protesters where agents are using pepper
balls and tier gas and civilian neighborhoods, and.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
This show of force is designed to achieve what.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
It's designed to drive undocumented immigrants to self deport, to
leave out of fear and exhaustion, rather than waiting for
lengthy legal proceedings that they might even win.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
This intense pressure has to be creating this just pervasive
atmosphere of fear across immigrant communities.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
It creates widespread terror. That's the term used consistently in reports.
The fear is palpable, it's pervasive, and it affects not
just the undocumented, but documented immigrants who fear being mistakenly detained.
Even US citizens in mixed status neighborhoods are scared.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And we have reports of communities organizing resistance strategies.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yes, like handing out whistles. Whistles, Yes, in some communities,
neighbors are handing out whistles to residents. The purpose is simple.
When border patrol or federal agents are spotted in the neighborhood,
residents blow the whistles to alert everyone instantly. It prompts
people to hide inside or try to avoid the area.
It reflects a level of fear and community tension not
seen in decades.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
This has been a necessary but very difficult walk through
a tragedy and its immediate severe consequences. Let's just briefly
review the core sequence of events that brought us to
this policy inflection point.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
We started with the tragic ambush in DC. Two members
of the West Virginia National Guard specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who
died and staff searched Andrew Wolfe, who was critically injured,
were targeted.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
The suspect, Ramanila Lckenwell, an Afghan national, who drove across
the country to commit an act the FBI is calling
terrorism and.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
The crucial complexity is Lockenwall's background. He was an Afghan
ally admitted under Operation Allies Welcome because of his prior
service with a highly controversial CIA backed counter terrorism unit.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Zero Units or a Scorpion Forces unit's notorious for allegations
of severe human.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Rights abuses and the central political irony. His asylum status
was officially granted by the current administration in April twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
This tragic individual act, then immediately serve is the justification
for a massive, aggressive policy.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Crackdown and indefinite suspension of all immigration processing for Afghans,
the President threatening to permanently pause migration from all third
world countries, and critically the launch of an unprecedented full
scale review of the green cards for legal permanent residents
from nineteen countries.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And finally, this policy rhetoric is being matched by an escalating,
highly visible internal enforcement strategy using minimally trained agents and
public street arrests designed to drive mass fear and self deportation.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
It's a collision of a national security crisis and a
rapid shift in ideological immigration policy, and it is defining
this current moment.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
It certainly is, and the layers of Leconnell's profile the
CIA TI is the history of alleged abuses in his unit,
his status is an ally, and the fact of the
asylum is granted so recently by the very administration now
condemning the system. It makes this strategy more than just
a simple failure of vetting.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
It raises an incredibly complicated question for the country, one
that goes way beyond immediate sc security concerns. And that
question is given the historical fact that the US relied
so heavily on paramilitary units like the zero units to
fight its wars, units that often engaged in highly controversial,
high trauma actions. How does the United States moving forward
balance its moral obligation to protect these allies who served
(33:17):
alongside American forces with the very legitimate and stated need
to ensure domestic security instability. The vetting system is clearly
under attack, but the deeper tension lies in the legacy
of relying on and then trying to absorb fighters from
controversial US backed special forces. That tension between the promise
we made and the precaution we must take is what
(33:38):
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Speaker 2 (01:00):
Welcome to the Daily Story Brief We're opening today with
a story that is just a profound tragedy in the
nation's capital.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's a tragedy that has moved with just stunning speed.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Stanning speed. Yeah, from what seemed at first like a
local crime investigation to a global inflection point.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It really is. It sparked these immediate and frankly sweeping
national policy changes that could redefine immigration in America for
well for decades to come.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So our mission today is to really get into the facts.
We need to understand the shooting itself, the surprising and
very complex background of the manic cused.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And then we have to analyze the resulting government crackdown.
It's a set of actions that targets not just the suspect,
but entire global communities.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Okay, so let's start at the beginning. We have to
begin with the grim details of the ambush itself. This
happened right in the heart of Washington, d C. It
was around two point one five in the afternoon on Wednesday,
November twenty six, twenty twenty five, right near the Farragut
Square metro station.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
A very busy area, and the victims were two members
of the National Guard. They were serving on what was
already a very controversial deployment in the city.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
We'll get to that controversy in a minute, but let's
focus on the victims first.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Of course, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who is just twenty years old,
and Staff's strad Andrew Wolfe, who is twenty four, both
from the West Virginia.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
National Guard, and this was the day before Thanksgiving. The
city was already kind of slowing down for the holiday.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Exactly, and the outcome was just heartbreaking. Specialist Beckstrom, she'd
only entered service in June of twenty twenty three. She
was so new to it, so young, and she died
from her injuries the next day on Thanksgiving Day. Her
father confirmed the news online. It's just devastating.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And Staff's tripwolf he's.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
A longer serving member, started back in February twenty nineteen.
He remains in the hospital in critical conditions.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So US attorney Janine Piro, she characterized this as a
as an ambush style attack.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yes, the suspect was a lone gunman and he was
armed with a p iin three five seven Smith and Wesson.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Revolver, So this wasn't random, this was planned.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It indicates a deliberate lethal intent.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Absolutely. Fortunately there was another National Guard member nearby who
was able to respond almost immediately.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
And he took the suspect down.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
He shot the suspect four times. The suspect is currently
hospitalized in serious condition. But you know, the legal process
that began moving instantly.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And the moment Specialist Beckstrom passed away, the legal stakes
just shot up.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Absolutely. The initial charges were assault with intent to kill.
The second she died, those were instantly upgraded to first
degree murder.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Impiro made it very clear where the Justice Department stood
on this, Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Absolutely. She spoke alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi, and she
framed it as a premeditated assassination attempt on members of
the Armed services.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Her quote was that the suspect ambushed people who didn't.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Know what was coming exactly. And they've already publicly stated
that they will see the death penalty if staff Regwolf
doesn't survive, as if injuries.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
On top of all that, the FBI is treating the
whole incident as an act of domestic terrorism, which is
a very significant designation. It opens up a whole different
level of investigation and potential charges.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It's crucial I think for you to understand the political
atmosphere these soldiers were operating in, because this wasn't some
standard deployment.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
No, not at all. They were part of what's called
the DC Task Force. This was a contingent of nearly
twenty two hundred National Guard troops and.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They were deployed back in August twenty twenty five by
the President.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Himself, right after he declared a crime emergency in DC.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And that deployment was, to put it mildly, a political
powder keg. Even before this shooting happened.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It absolutely was. The DC Attorney General had already challenged
the legality of it in federal court.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
What was the basis of that challenge?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
The argument centered on the idea that the president was
using the National Guard for routine law enforcement roles, things
that you know, fall outside their traditional scope.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Violated the city's right to self government precisely.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It was a major constitutional showdown.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
So what was the status of that legal challenge Right
before the ambush happened, Where did it stand?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It was literally hanging in the balance. Just a few
days before the shooting, a federal district judge had delivered
a pretty significant blow to the administration.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
The judge ruled against the deployment.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
The ruling said the deployment was likely illegal, that it
represented an overreach of executive authority.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Wow, so a federal judge essentially declared the mission invalid.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
But here's the key part. The enforcement of that ruling,
the order to actually pull the troops out was temporarily paused.
Why it was paused until December eleventh to give the
administration time to file an appeal. So these Guard members,
like specialist exstrum and staffs were at wolf. They were
operating in DC under this huge cloud of legal contention.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So you have a deployment that a federal judge believes
is unconstitutional, and then that very deployment is specifically targeted
in a violent attack.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yes, it's an almost unbelievable confluence of events.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So what was the administration's immediate response to that, to
this direct escalation.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Well, despite the legal battle, despite the tragic proof that
these troops were now targets, the President chose to double.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Down, double downhill.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
He immediately ordered an additional five hundred National Guard members
to DC.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So he increased the deployment, increased.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
It, raising the total to nearly twenty seven hundred troops.
It was a move that explicitly signaled his defiance of
the legal challenge. He was escalating the very mission a
judge had just called illegal.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Okay, so that's the context. Now we have to unpack
who the shooter is, because this is where the incident
really shifts from a tragedy into this incredibly complicated national
security and policy crisis.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
The suspect's name is Ramanola Lochenwall. He's twenty nine years old,
an Afghan national.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
And here's the first strange detail. He didn't live locally.
He drove across the entire country from his home in
Washington State, specifically to carry out this attack.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
In the capital, across the entire country.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yes, and his identity, and even more critically, the way
he entered the US that became the immediate focus of
all the political fallout.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
He came here through a very specific program created after
the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was called Operation Allies
Welcome exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
He entered in September of twenty twenty one. Under ow
This program was I mean, it was essentially a humanitarian effort.
It was designed to rapidly relocate Afghan nationals who had
worked with and often risked their lives for US forces.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And OEW brought in a massive number of people.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Roughly seventy six thousand Afghans came to the US through
that program, and the current administration has been criticizing it
basically since day one, claiming it had lacks vetting standards.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Although, and we should be clear about this, proponents of
OW always pushed back on that. They stress that these
Afghan allies were subjected to extensive security screening.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh. Absolutely, multiple intelligence agencies, law enforcement bodies like the FBI, DHS,
they were all involved in that screening process.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It was a balance right between urgency and security.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
That was the idea. But here's the key fact that
immediately blew up the political narrative. Initially, you had sources
in the administration claiming that Luckenwall had overstated a visa
or that he was in the country illegally.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Right, that was the initial report.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
But then consistent reporting confirmed something else entirely. While he
had applied for asylum during the previous administration, his asylum
status was officially granted by the Trump administration in April
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Let's just pause on that for a second. That is
that's politically explosive. It is the shooting is being used
as exhibit a that the previous administration's vetting failed, but
the shooter's actual legal status his asylum was formally approved
by the current administration just seven months ago.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The irony is just profound. It completely undercuts the immediate
narrative that this was all a consequence of the chaotic
withdrawal in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It forces the administration to confront the idea that their
own vetting processes conducted very recently, cleared this man for
permanent residence.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It pivots the narrative. It shifts the focus from a
potential failure in twenty twenty one to a potential failure
in twenty twenty five. Or maybe it suggests the problem
is just far more complex than a simple lacks vetting
slogan can capture.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And the complexity it just keeps deepening when you look
at why he was eligible for this program in the
first place. He wasn't just some translator. He had specific
high level ties to US counter terrorism operations, specifically with
the CIA.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
And this was confirmed publicly by the CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
He stated that Lockinwall's admission was explicitly and this is
a quote, due to his prior work with the US government,
including CIA, and he.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Served in a very specialized, highly kinetic Afghan army unit.
They were known as the Zero.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Units or the Scorpion Forces, they had a few names.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We really need to spend some time on these Zero
Units because for you the listener, to really understand Lockinwell's
profile and the significance of his whole trajectory, you need
to know what kind of entity this was. These weren't
regular army forces, were they.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
No, not at all. The Zero Units were paramilitary groups.
They were highly secretive, and they operated under the direction
and crucially the financing of the CIA.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So they were strike forces.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's what they were often called. They were tasked with
these very aggressive counter terrorism and counter insurgency operations, primarily
targeting the Taliban, but operating way outside the traditional military
chain of command, so.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
They were essentially a covert extension of US intelligence on
the ground in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That is exactly the operational model. And Lackinwall was specifically
recruited to Unit three of the Kandahar Strike Force, and.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
He had been with them for a long time.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
A very long time. He started way back in twenty
twelve just as a security guard, so that shows this
long term loyalty, this deep integration with the US effort.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
He was promoted over time, yes.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Eventually becoming a team leader and a GPS specialist. And
just for context, on his final serve, reports indicate he
was helping guard US forces at the chaotic Kabul airport
perimeter during that twenty twenty one evacuation.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So he was a trusted insider, a front line operative.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Absolutely, But the shadow that surrounds these units is immense.
When we talk about them, we have to acknowledge the
severe allegations that were leveled against them by international human
rights watchdogs for years.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And this is really the darkest, most complicated part of
this entire story.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It is for years organizations like Human Rights Watch they
consistently scrutinize the zero units. They often just outright labeled
them death squads.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And the allegations aren't minor. We're talking about systematic.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Abuses, yes, abuses that violate international humanitarian law. We're talking
about serious crimes like extra judicial executions.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Meaning killings carried out without any legal process.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Exactly They're also accused of enforced disappearances, basically making people
vanish without a trace, which creates this terror in local populations,
and indiscriminated attacks, yes, including airstres the hit civilian targets,
and even medical facilities. There is a huge Human Rights
Watch report back in twenty nineteen that specifically documented these
patterns of abuse, and.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
The report noted that because these units were backed by
the CIA and operated outside conventional military oversight, they often
acted with impunity, there.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Was no accountability. So this is the man ram Noula
la Kanwell. He was a highly valued long term ally,
but he was operating inside a US backed structure that
critics viewed as inherently brutal and accountable to no one.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This is not the profile of a simple refugee fleeing
a war. It's the profile of a high risk, high
trauma asset.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
It really is, and it creates this deep moral and
ethical conundrum for the US government. How so you rely
on these forces to do the dirty work in a
chaotic war zone. You promised them safety and refuge in
return for their service.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That's the very nature of that job.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The nature of that job exposes them to profound trauma,
It forces them into actions that can shatter them psychologically.
So when Lockinwall arrives in the US, he doesn't just
bring his loyalty, He brings years of exposure to state
sanctioned violence and all the mental baggage from the front line.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Which brings us to the question of motive. US Attorney
Piero She declined to discuss it, but investigators have to
be looking at what tipped him, what turned him from
a US granted asylum seeker into a terrorist attacker.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
And sources confirmed they are intensely focused on his psychological state.
Even the President, in his characteristically blunt way, weighed in
on it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
What did he say?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
He suggested Lockanwall went cuckoo and went nuts after the war.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Crude, but it points to a recognition that trauma might
be a factor.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
It does, and a US official provided some more concrete insight.
They confirmed Lackenwall had been deeply disturbed by the exceptionally
high number of casualties his zero units suffered overseas.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
These units were in constant, high intensity combat constantly.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
The loss rates were just staggering, and that kind of
loss takes a toll.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Was there a more recent trigger something that might have
pushed him over the edge.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It seems so. The sources indicate that Lackenwall was recently
and very deeply troubled by the killing of a close
friend overseas.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So it's the cascading series of traumatic events.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
That's what it looks like. Years of intense combat trauma,
may be compounded by guilt or regret over his unit's
alleged actions, and then a recent, very personal loss that
may have pushed him past a breaking point.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So what emerges is this profile of an Afghan ally
who helped guard US forces, who was granted asylum by
the current government, but who seems to have been suffering
from this profound, undiagnosed or untreated psychological distress that finally
culminated in this horrific act of violence.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
It is a profoundly difficult and layered context.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
And yet the second his identity was confirmed, the political
machine just immediately seized on the simplest possible narrative, immigration failure.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The reaction from the administration was instant and maximalist did
used the shooting to validate his entire hardline stance on immigration.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You called it a heinous assault.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
A heinous assault that, in his words, proves that lax
migration policies are the single greatest national security threat facing
our nation.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And he wasn't subtle about assigning blame either. He repeatedly
cited these huge figures about previous administration.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Not at all. He repeatedly faulted the Biden administration for
letting in what he claimed to were twenty million unknown
and unvetted foreigners. He created this impression that Lockenwall was
some unvetted illegal entrant, despite all the confirmed facts we
just discussed.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Despite his CIA ties, despite his twenty twenty five asylum grant.
Exactly beyond the policy rhetoric, his personal response to the
tragedy of Special Specstrum's death that drew some really sharp criticism.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
It was startlingly abrupt. When a reporter asked if he
planned to attend her funeral, his response was, well, it
was highly politicized what happened. He gave a kind of
noncommittal answer at first, but then he immediately pivoted to
bragging about his electoral success in her home state. He said,
I love West Virginia. You know, I won West Virginia
(16:07):
by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, being asked about the funeral of a soldier from
that state.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yes, and commentators immediately seized on this as a moment
of just extreme disconnect.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
The response suggested a total inability to center on her sacrifice.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
It turned her death into an opportunity for self aggrandizement.
Political commentators like Tom Nichols called it a demented, malignant,
narcissist moment, arguing that even in the face of this
national tragedy, the focus couldn't be removed from the president's
own popularity.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It highlighted this perceived lack of empathy that it almost
dominated the news cycle as much as the shooting itself.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
It did, and then there was a confrontation with CBS
News reporter Nancy Kord's which just further cemented the administration's
defensiveness over this whole vetting issue.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Right what happened there?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, Cordis challenged the president's claims. She specifically cited a
Department of Justice Inspector General report that had found that
the Afghan arrivals, including those under OEW, did receive thorough
vetting by Homeland Security and the FBI.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So she was using the government's own findings to question
his narrative, and.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
His reaction was incredibly aggressive. He publicly lashed out at her, demanding,
are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? It was
a really clear example of the administration just refusing to
let facts, even their own confirmed government reports, interfere with
the political utility of the crisis.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
And if we move from the President's remarks to his
advisor Stephen Miller, the rhetoric intensified even more. It moved
beyond a specific policy critique into these these broader, more
aggressive claims about assimilation itself.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Miller's comments were chillingly explicit. He was responding to this
wave of criticism that was urging against collective punishment for
the Afghan community, and.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
He just dismissed the whole idea of successful large scale migration.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
He did. He wrote that the mass migration is the
great lie. He argued, and I'm quoting here. You are
not just importing individuals, you are importing societies. No magic
transformation occurs when failed states cross borders at scale, migrants
and their descendants recreate the conditions and terrors of their
broken homelands.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
He called assimilation fundamentally impossible.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
He did, and that is an overtly xenophobic and historically
loaded argument.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So how did historians and policy professors respond to that
specific line.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Of attack with immediate and forceful condemnation, Mostly by connecting
it to historical precedent. Scholars pointed out that Miller's comments
were almost word for word identical to the rhetoric used
by xenophobes in the US back in the nineteen thirties
and forties. He's coup against immigrants fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. Specifically,
they pointed out, this was the rhetoric used against Miller's
(18:51):
own Jewish ancestors.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
So the historical parallel is that this idea that migrants
bring the terrors of their broken homeland, this is just
a recurring anti immigrant trope. It's been used against virtually
every non Western group that has sought refuge here exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Don moynihan, a policy professor at the University of Michigan.
He noted that this rhetoric is deeply at odds with
the vision and history of America, which is fundamentally built
on assimilation and change. The analysis was clear, this wasn't
a new policy critique. This was an attempt to justify
a new deep skepticism of multiculturalism, using the DC tragedy
(19:29):
as cover.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So amidst this firestorm of political rhetoric, how did the
Afghan community in the US react. They're caught in the
middle of all of this.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
They move very quickly to try and manage the crisis.
Afghan organizations swiftly condemned the attack as deeply tragic. They
emphasize very strongly that Locke Andwall does not represent the broader,
law abiding Afghan community, a.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Community that risk everything to support the US exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
The Afghan Community Coalition of United States called for a
full investigation, but made this desperate plea to the government
not to suspend all immigran claims.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
They were essentially saying, don't forget the twenty years of partnership.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Great precisely, they said, twenty years of Afghan US partnership
must not be forgotten. Advocacy groups like AFGHANIVAC they were
very vocal in warning against using the attack for collective punishment.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And let's spend a moment on that term collective punishment
for listeners who might not be familiar with the specific
legal meaning. Why is the Afghan community using that exact phrase.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
It's a term that's often used in international law, and
its core meaning is assigning guilt or a penalty to
an entire group for the actions of a single individual
or a small group.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So they're saying the policy response punishes everyone for the
actions of one.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Person, exactly when they use it here, they're pointing out
that suspending immigration for all Afghans or reviewing the green
cards of people from nineteen different nations, it punishes hundreds
of thousands of innocent legal residents and applicants based entirely
on the actions of Rama Nola La Konwall. It violates
the basic principle that guilt has to be personal.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And despite those plays, the policy shift was well, it
was already underway.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It was immediate.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Let's detail the scope of this immigration crackdown that followed
the shooting.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
The very first action was laser focused on Afghanistan USCIS,
that's US Citizenship and Immigration Services immediately suspended the processing
of all immigration requests for Afghan national.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So special immigrant visa's asylum, all of it just stopped.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Everything came to a halt, pending a review of security
and vetting protocols. Now, this wasn't entirely new. Afghanistan was
already one of twelve countries included in a narrower travel
ban implemented earlier in the year.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
But the real scale of the policy change was revealed
on Thanksgiving Day. The President escalated the plan far beyond
just Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
That Thanksgiving social media post it basically became a manifesto
for a massive reversal of US migration policy. The President
announced plans to permanently pause migration from all third world
countries to allow the US system to fully recover.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
And the terminology there third World countries that is deeply loaded,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Absolutely. It's a term that's rooted in the Cold War era.
It's widely considered archaic, insensitive, derogatory.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
It lumps together most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
It does, and its use by the Head of States
signaled this deliberate and provocative rejection of modern diplomatic language.
It positioned all of these nations as inherently problematic sources
of migration, and the band.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Was also coupled with pledges to retroactively reverse previous decisions.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yes, he pledged to terminate all of the millions of
Biden illegal admissions, and crucially to remove anyone who is
not a net asset to the United States or is
incapable of loving our country.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
And then there was that last point about cultural compatibility.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Great he added this explicit ideological commitment deporting foreign nationals
who are noncompatible with Western civilization.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That's a shift from security or economic rationales to one
based on what cultural and ideological purity.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It's an unprecedented level of ideological screening in modern US
immigration policy, and the administration immediately moved to implement it
through this green card review of people from nineteen countries.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
This might be the most shocking part of the whole response,
targeting legal permanent residents, people who hold green cards.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
It's a huge shift. The USCIS director Joseph Edlow. He
announced a full scale, rigorous re examination of every green
card for every alien from every country of concern.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So people who went through the extensive process years ago,
who built lives here now face having their status reviewed
and maybe.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Revoked exactly based on a generalized national security concern tied
to their country of origin.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Can you walk us through the full list of countries
involved in this review.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
It is an extensive list. It covers three continents spans
nations dealing with conflict, political instability, or previous sanctions. Nineteen
nations in total.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And they're broken into two categories.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yes, all countries are designated as fully restricted. For them,
all immigration processing is suspended and all existing green cards
are under full review.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And those are.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan and Yemen.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That group seems to largely align with countries that have
been previously identified as face of concern for various reasons.
What about the partially restricted list?
Speaker 3 (24:29):
That list has seven countries, and it's also significant because
it shows the global sweep of this The seven are Burundi, Cuba, Laos,
Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And for them some visas might still be processed, but
all green card holders are subject to this re examination.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Which creates just immense instability for people who have built lives, homes,
businesses here under the assumption of permanent legal residency.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And the administration also leveraged its financial tools to restrict
movement right the scrutiny of cross border money transfers.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
That's right. The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FINSEN,
issued a formal alert. It urged all financial institutions, especially
money services businesses, the places people used to send money home,
to heighten.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Their scrutiny on what grounds.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
The justification was that individuals without legal status pose significant
threats to national security, and it framed remittances as potential
funding streams for smuggling and trafficking.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So this action serves two purposes. It adds a layer
of surveillance and it makes life much harder for undocumented
immigrants trying to support their families back home.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It creates a choke point, You raise transaction costs, you
create a fear of surveillance, and you disrupt one of
the most vital connections these communities have with their home countries.
It basically weaponizes the financial system against them.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So what was the international response to all of this?
The US using an isolated incident to justify such sweeping
mass restrictions.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Their response was one of dismay and appeals to international law.
Un agencies like the High Commissioner for Refugees publicly appealed
to Washington to honor its international commitments.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Specifically citing the nineteen fifty three Refugee Convention YES.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Which guarantees due process for asylum seekers and mandates non refellment,
the rule against sending refugees back into danger, and.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
The You and Human Rights Office. They specifically addressed the
justification the administration was using.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
They did. They force fully stressed that using an isolated
incident to justify mass restrictions is and I quote inconsistent
with evidence showing no link between refugee arrivals and increased crime.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
In other words, the data doesn't support the policy.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
They're saying, the policy is politically driven, not evidence based.
And domestically groups like CARER, the Council, and American Islamic
Relations they just reiterated their condemnation of the moves as
a form of collective punishment.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Okay, let's pivot now to what this means on the
ground for enforcement and for the lives of the people
being targeted. Lock and Wall is still hospitalized facing murder charges,
but the administration is now looking at his family.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Lock Andwall is facing the most severe charges possible. Authorities
have said there will be many more charges to come,
likely including terrorism statutes, but the administration has made it
very clear that the consequences will extend to his immediate family.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
What did the presidents say about them?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
He was asked about Lockewoll's wife and his five children
in Washington State. He was very direct, he said, we're
looking at that right now. We're looking at the whole
situation with family.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So they're exploring deporting them.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
The possibility of deporting his family, despite their lack of
involvement in the crime, is being actively explored. It's part
of the broader crackdown strategy, and.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
This incident is also serving as justification for a major
acceleration of immigration enforcement tactics nationwide. These new escalated operations,
what do they look like in cities across the US?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
They look profoundly different than traditional enforcement. The strategy has
shifted from passive enforcement, like arresting someone at a scheduled hearing,
to these highly aggressive, very public street arrests.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So agents are actively hunting people down.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
They're labeling them fugitives and tracking them down at their homes,
their workplaces, even outside of schools where they're dropping off
their children. It's designed to maximize visibility and intimidation.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And it's not just traditional immigration agencies like IC running
these operations.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
That is a critical detail. We are seeing massive deployments
involving agencies that normally focus on completely different areas like
KU Border Patrol, FBI and DEA agents, and they're being
deployed in cities far from the border, places like Chicago
and Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
And the problem is that many of these agents, who
might specialize in drug trafficking or organize crime, they don't
have the specific, nuanced training for civilian immigration law.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
The training is minimal. We're talking about a two week
immigration crash course. It's completely inadequate for the complexities of
identifying legal status, understanding due process, or navigating communitiesties.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
And this minimal training, combined with the reliance on profiling,
is leading to what sources are calling sloppy enforcement.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
It is. It's sloppy and it's scattershot, and there are
two major consequences to that.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
What's the first one.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
First, while they're making a high number of very public arrests,
the actual long term deportation's success rate is often lower
because the sloppy profiling means they frequently detain people who
are later discovered to have legal status.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So they're arresting legal residents and even US citizens, yes.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
People with valid visas, green cards, and in documented cases,
US citizens who get caught up in the dragnet because
of their appearance or the language they speak. They're arrested, detained,
and then eventually released. But the damage is done, and.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
The second consequence seems to align more with the strategic
goal the administration, which you're driving people out exactly.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
The tactics are highly public, aggressive and very scary. We
are seeing confrontations with protesters where agents are using pepper
balls and tier gas and civilian neighborhoods, and.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
This show of force is designed to achieve what.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
It's designed to drive undocumented immigrants to self deport, to
leave out of fear and exhaustion, rather than waiting for
lengthy legal proceedings that they might even win.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
This intense pressure has to be creating this just pervasive
atmosphere of fear across immigrant communities.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
It creates widespread terror. That's the term used consistently in reports.
The fear is palpable, it's pervasive, and it affects not
just the undocumented, but documented immigrants who fear being mistakenly detained.
Even US citizens in mixed status neighborhoods are scared.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And we have reports of communities organizing resistance strategies.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yes, like handing out whistles. Whistles, Yes, in some communities,
neighbors are handing out whistles to residents. The purpose is simple.
When border patrol or federal agents are spotted in the neighborhood,
residents blow the whistles to alert everyone instantly. It prompts
people to hide inside or try to avoid the area.
It reflects a level of fear and community tension not
seen in decades.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
This has been a necessary but very difficult walk through
a tragedy and its immediate severe consequences. Let's just briefly
review the core sequence of events that brought us to
this policy inflection point.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
We started with the tragic ambush in DC. Two members
of the West Virginia National Guard specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who
died and staff searched Andrew Wolfe, who was critically injured,
were targeted.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
The suspect, Ramanila Lckenwell, an Afghan national, who drove across
the country to commit an act the FBI is calling
terrorism and.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
The crucial complexity is Lockenwall's background. He was an Afghan
ally admitted under Operation Allies Welcome because of his prior
service with a highly controversial CIA backed counter terrorism unit.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Zero Units or a Scorpion Forces unit's notorious for allegations
of severe human.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Rights abuses and the central political irony. His asylum status
was officially granted by the current administration in April twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
This tragic individual act, then immediately serve is the justification
for a massive, aggressive policy.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Crackdown and indefinite suspension of all immigration processing for Afghans,
the President threatening to permanently pause migration from all third
world countries, and critically the launch of an unprecedented full
scale review of the green cards for legal permanent residents
from nineteen countries.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And finally, this policy rhetoric is being matched by an escalating,
highly visible internal enforcement strategy using minimally trained agents and
public street arrests designed to drive mass fear and self deportation.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
It's a collision of a national security crisis and a
rapid shift in ideological immigration policy, and it is defining
this current moment.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
It certainly is, and the layers of Leconnell's profile the
CIA TI is the history of alleged abuses in his unit,
his status is an ally, and the fact of the
asylum is granted so recently by the very administration now
condemning the system. It makes this strategy more than just
a simple failure of vetting.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
It raises an incredibly complicated question for the country, one
that goes way beyond immediate sc security concerns. And that
question is given the historical fact that the US relied
so heavily on paramilitary units like the zero units to
fight its wars, units that often engaged in highly controversial,
high trauma actions. How does the United States moving forward
balance its moral obligation to protect these allies who served
(33:17):
alongside American forces with the very legitimate and stated need
to ensure domestic security instability. The vetting system is clearly
under attack, but the deeper tension lies in the legacy
of relying on and then trying to absorb fighters from
controversial US backed special forces. That tension between the promise
we made and the precaution we must take is what
(33:38):
will fundamentally challenge American policy and values in the coming years.
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