Late on Wednesday evening I caught a taxi home from the office after a long and sobering day.
Washington DC was still absorbing the news that two young National Guard members had been shot in broad daylight at near-point blank range a block from the White House. One of them, Sarah Beckstrom, 20, has died.
“Late night in the office?” the cab driver said.
“Yes…” I replied, not massively enthusiastic for a chat.
“We’ll need to go a different way. The roads are closed because of the shooting.” he told me.
“Terrible, eh?” I replied.
“Yes. I just heard the president…” he said pointing to his car radio.
An hour earlier President Donald Trump had addressed the nation from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
He’d reflected on the shooting, revealed that the gunman was from Afghanistan, blamed former President Biden for allowing him into the country and vowed a massive new immigration crackdown. He singled out Afghans, and then, for reasons that remain unclear, the Somali community in Minnesota.
The alleged gunman had arrived from Afghanistan in 2021. He was among more than 70,000 Afghans brought to America, via a basic vetting process in Qatar, as part of Operation Allies Welcome.
It was part of the fallout from the chaotic American military withdrawal from Afghanistan. As the Taliban regained power, the Biden administration sought to help the thousands of Afghans who had worked with American and other NATO forces for two decades in Afghanistan.
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“I’m Abdullah…” the driver said to me.
I had guessed already that he might be from Afghanistan. He then confirmed it.
“I came to America in 2012,” he told me. “I worked with the Americans and the British in Kandahar.
“I prefer the British!” he joked, recognising my accent. “Your language is pure. But America is the dream.”
I asked how he felt about the events of the day.
“Well, I understand the president’s message. As a leader he is right to want to make his country safe,” Abdullah said.
“But I am worried now,” he added. “The Afghan diaspora in America is big”, he said. “It’s scary for us all now…”
America’s foreign misadventures over decades have often been coupled with an influx of immigrants from the collapsed nations left behind.
The American dream usually outweighs any bitterness immigrants may have for the mess they left behind.
Abdullah hinted at his role with US forces in Kandahar two decades ago. He said he was a combat medic. Now he is driving an Uber through the night to make ends meet.
“I shouldn’t be driving now, after this shooting”, he said. “Why?” I asked.
“Because if I get stopped – pulled over for a broken tail light or something – they will probably detain me.”
“Arrest first and ask questions later?” I asked.
“Right… you’ve seen what they have been doing?”
He was referring to the ICE raids – immigration crackdowns across the country to round up suspected illegal immigrants.
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As part of the crackdown, people with legal residency, as well as people within the asylum process and even US citizens have been detained.
Abdullah is legally in America. But it’s clear from our conversation that this doesn’t give him any comfort.
“You know those signs on the metro”, he says. “See something, say something…?”
He was referring to a US government public awareness campaign that’s been running for years to encourage people to report suspicious activity.
“They will report us now…”
It’s not surprising to me that he might be worried about being reported just because of what he looks like. Ever since 9/11 this has been a worry for minority communities. The fundamental difference now is that the authorities no longer guarantee security for those who have done nothing wrong.
President Trump’s rhetoric will unquestionably stir xenophobia. His jump from “an evil act of terror” to authorising a dramatic extension to his immigration crackdown came within that first statement on Wednesday night.
He pivoted quickly from Afghanistan, “the hell hole on earth”, to the Somali community in Minnesota, despite no connection with the DC shooting. He said the Somalis are “ripping off our country and ripping apart that once-great state”, adding that Somalia as a country has “no laws, no water, no military, no nothing”.
This president doesn’t wait before engaging politically. It’s not his style. The emerging facts suggest that Wednesday’s gunman worked with an elite Afghan unit alongside the CIA. This would have prompted a layered vetting process. Data also suggests that the suspect was granted asylum under Trump’s administration despite entering the country when Joe Biden was president.
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The president has now vowed to to “permanently pause” immigration from “third world countries” and to “re-examine every single alien” who has entered the country from Afghanistan.
That would presumably include the man driving me home this evening. Abdullah is a law-abiding legal resident of the United States who fought alongside the Americans in Afghanistan. He should have nothing to fear. But in Trump’s America, he does.
