Trump DC Guard deployment didn’t fuel violence — Biden’s Afghan vetting breakdown did
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Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal has been formally charged with the horrific shooting of National Guardsmen Andrew Wolfe and Sarah Beckstrom outside a Washington DC subway stop last week. While Lakanwal allegedly killed Beckstrom during the attack, Wolfe is reportedly still recovering; Attorney General Pam Bondi has stated that the Justice Department intends to seek the death penalty.
But as Lakanwal’s day in court continues, a larger debate remains over who is responsible for the murder: the shooter or President Donald Trump. Following the shooting, many on the left moved to place blame on Trump.
Critics argued that the president’s deployment of the National Guard was a political stunt that unnecessarily put Guardsmen like Wolfe and Beckstrom in the line of fire. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle, alleged He said the clashes took place “after months of warnings that the deployment would escalate tensions.” The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer I took it to X Just hours after the shooting, calling Trump’s deployment a “political stunt” and claiming “those poor guardsmen should never have been deployed.”
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The truth is that the deployment of the Guard to D.C., far from being a spectacle, has led to a decrease in crime in the capital; a significant achievement in a city long plagued by violence. And responsibility for Lakanwal’s actions lies primarily with the killer himself and the Biden administration, which allowed him into the country in 2021 after its disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
No one can object to DC There is a serious violence problem – Do what Trump’s critics can do. Before distribution, city’s murder rate It was down from its 2023 peak but still 70% higher than its last low in 2014. Data Research from the Criminal Justice Council, a nonpartisan crime policy organization, shows that the murder rate in D.C. in 2024 is higher than that in cities like Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia. And as I found my own researchthis violence most concentrated In the poorest and most minority-populated areas of the region. 95 percent of murder victims and suspects in the city Is it black?and 92% are male.
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The presence of the Guard almost certainly reduced this violence. Final analysis crime investigator Jeff Asher notes a marked decline in shootings since the Guard arrived. preliminary analysis by CBS and also reductions in crime What Memphis, Tennessee, saw during its own National Guard deployment.
Some on the left might want to argue that the guards are just there for “show.” But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what deploying armed government agents means. reduces crimeBoth by deterring lawbreaking and by relieving stress on overtaxed and understaffed police departments. Anyone who claims to care about the welfare of DC’s poor young black men should be jeering, not cheering.
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The best available evidence indicates that Lakanwal’s actions were not motivated by the deployment of the Guard. To our knowledge, the National Guard’s presence in D.C. did not “ignite” him into action. Rather, the picture that is beginning to emerge is that a disturbed individual was allowed into the country after a hasty vetting process following the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, were shot in Washington, DC, on November 26. Beckstrom died in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day, November 27. Wolfe is still recovering from the shooting. (United States Attorney for the District of Columbia/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
According to recent reports, Lakanwal had served with the CIA in his native Afghanistan. He was evacuated to the United States as part of Operation Welcome Allies, the resettlement program launched after the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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These evacuees were apparently heavily scrutinized by both the CIA and the administration. But it seems this review overlooked Lakanwal. reportedly He struggled with assimilation and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “He had been dissociating for years, unable to hold a job and alternating between long periods of light-free isolation and sudden field trips lasting weeks.” received emails By Associated Press.
Undated file photo of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the suspect in the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, DC, on November 26, 2025. (provided by the Ministry of Justice)
Lakanwal bears first and foremost responsibility for the alleged shooting. But there is also blame for the failure to allow such a person – regardless of his previous service – to enter the country and allow his situation to deteriorate until he attacked. Lakanwal was one of millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, accepted under the Biden administration; This is just the latest example of the dangers of uncontrolled and irresponsibly managed migration.
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In this regard, people like Lakanwal are the ones the National Guard has been deployed to the streets of Washington, D.C. to deter. Just like on the border, uncontrolled crimes are rampant in the city.
The deployment of the Guard was not a pointless spectacle but a vital corrective. And to pretend otherwise does a disservice to Staff Sgt. Wolfe and Spc. To Beckstrom and all the other law enforcement officers and guards who risked their lives.
