When Moh Dawood Akbari heard that an Afghan man was the suspect in the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., on Thanksgiving eve, he began to cry.
Akbari, an Afghan American who immigrated to the U.S. in 2017 and lives in Federal Way, said he was deeply sad for the victims but also afraid. At a time when the Trump administration is already looking for any reason to deport immigrants, he said, he was concerned what would happen to his friends and family.
The suspect in custody was identified as Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, who federal officials say entered the U.S. in 2021 and was living in Bellingham. FBI Director Kash Patel said his office was executing search warrants around the country, including at Lakanwal’s Bellingham address.
Following the shooting, President Donald Trump and his administration have taken steps to increase enforcement action against people from Afghanistan. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it indefinitely halted the processing of all immigration requests involving Afghan nationals.
Local Afghan community members and leaders in Washington state are condemning the actions of the shooter but say their community should not be punished for the actions of one man.
“There is no justification, it’s a heinous crime,” said Ghulam Mohmand, a board member of Afghan American Cultural Association, an organization in Washington state. “We feel sorry and are praying for those two National Guard members, for their recovery. And their families and their loved ones, they are in our thoughts.”
Mohmand said he has lived in the country for more than a decade after working with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and feels like his own countrymen were shot.
“This is home, and we feel the pain like any other American,” Mohmand said.
Ismail Khan, another board member, said he was also deeply sad and outraged by the shooting, but he called the retaliatory actions by the federal government unfair.
“The Afghan community shouldn’t be punished for one person’s act,” Khan said.
Akbari, in Federal Way, said his thoughts immediately went to a friend who is currently held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Tacoma. He said she left Afghanistan to pursue an education and has since become Americanized — she has a tattoo, attends concerts, drinks alcohol. For that, Akbari said, she would be in severe danger if she was sent back to Afghanistan, which is governed by the Taliban and imposes extremely strict policies on women.
“Definitely she will be killed,” Akbari said. “She doesn’t have a place to go back.”
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