FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Laura Trask
Director, Development and Communications
[email protected]
December 1, 2025 (Washington, D.C.)— Ayuda grieves the loss of the National Guard service member killed in the shooting on Wednesday, November 26, and holds the critically injured service member and both victims’ families in our thoughts. No community should have to endure this kind of harm, and we unequivocally reject violence in all forms.
Yet moments of fear and sorrow must not be used as a pretext for policies rooted in racial profiling. Ayuda condemns the administration’s nationality-based immigration punishments in the wake of this tragedy. The suspension of Afghan immigration processing, the newly ordered pause on all asylum decisions nationwide, and the sweeping reexamination of green cards issued to people from 19 countries are indiscriminate measures that target entire communities.
Ayuda currently represents 50 Afghan clients – parents trying to reunite with their children, spouses separated by war, and individuals seeking protection from persecution. These families have followed lawful steps for years and endured repeated security screenings. Freezing their cases mid-process uproots lives, delays reunification, and ultimately places families in renewed danger.
We are especially alarmed by the administration’s directive to pause all asylum application decisions across the United States while it conducts a review. A nationwide shutdown of asylum adjudications leaves thousands of people in limbo, including survivors of torture, domestic violence, political repression, and religious persecution. It also threatens to back up an already strained system, prolonging uncertainty for families who are doing exactly what the law requires.
The directive to reexamine green cards from 19 countries labeled “of concern” compounds that harm, putting lawful permanent residents at risk of destabilizing re-vetting and even loss of status despite the jobs, families, and lives they have built here. Policies like this echo earlier travel-ban frameworks and revive a climate of suspicion aimed at immigrants from Muslim-majority and other marginalized nations, with predictable ripple effects: spikes in anti-Afghan, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant harassment. When leaders respond to a crime by casting whole nationalities as dangerous, it legitimizes racial and ethnic bias and widens the circle of harm to children in schools, workers on the job, and families in public spaces.
Ayuda urges the administration and Congress to take a response rooted in law and evidence, not fear. We call on federal leaders to:
- Reverse the Afghan processing suspension immediately and restore individualized, fair adjudications.
- End the nationwide asylum decision freeze and resume timely case determinations consistent with due process.
- Halt the blanket green-card reexamination and ensure any security review is narrow, individualized, and rights-respecting.
- Publicly reject and actively counter Islamophobia and xenophobia, including by tracking and responding to hate incidents targeting Afghan and Muslim communities.
Furthermore, we ask local elected leaders to take decisive actions to protect the rights and safety of D.C. residents who will also be unjustly targeted in the aftermath of this shooting. The administration has announced it will deploy an additional 500 National Guard troops to D.C, and reports indicate that the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) may accompany or coordinate with those deployments. With a federal court recently ruling the Guard’s deployment to D.C. unlawful, local action is urgent as that decision is appealed.
Ayuda reiterates our call on Councilmember Brooke Pinto, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, to hold public hearings on the Metropolitan Police Department’s coordination with ICE and the National Guard. These hearings must examine the scope, oversight, and impact of any collaboration on immigrant communities. D.C. residents deserve transparency and accountability, and immigrant families must be able to report crimes, seek help, access local services and participate in public life without fear that any interaction with local law enforcement will entangle them in federal enforcement.
We believe that everyone deserves safety, dignity, and equal treatment under the law. Ayuda will continue representing our Afghan clients, supporting those harmed by these policies, and advocating locally and nationally for humane immigration systems that protect both public safety and civil rights.
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About Ayuda:
Ayuda provides direct legal, social, and language access services to low-income immigrants in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Since 1973, Ayuda has served more than 150,000 immigrants throughout the region. Ayuda is the only nonprofit service provider in the area that provides a wide range of immigration and family law assistance, social services, and language access support for all immigrants – including women, men, and children – from anywhere in the world. Visit www.ayuda.com to learn more.
