WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday highlighted the abuse of the U.S. asylum system and reiterated the importance of mass deportations in the wake of a shooting that killed a member of the National Guard and critically injured another last week in the nation’s capital.
Leavitt also honored the National Guard soldiers by quoting the words of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John.
“I’ll tell you what does not add to our nation’s character and integrity is refugees who come here under the alleged plight of asylum and fleeing persecution, and then come to the United States to abuse our system and rip off American taxpayers,” Leavitt said in response to a question regarding the definition of American “national identity.”
Leavitt went on to cite a Nov. 29 New York Times article that exposed a large alleged fraud scandal in Minnesota’s social services, where criminals, primarily from the state’s sizable Somali community, stole up to $1 billion over the past five years by creating sham companies that billed state agencies for nonexistent food, housing and other aid services.
Federal prosecutors, led by Joseph H. Thompson, have charged dozens of people for crimes that include stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program intended to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All of this has happened under Democrat leadership in a Democrat-run state where these refugees, these migrants, are coming to the United States, they are abusing our system, they are degrading our resources that should be going to law-abiding, tax-paying Americans, and this president is not going to put up with it,” Leavitt said in an apparent reference to Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whom President Donald Trump called “retarded” last week in a lengthy Truth Social post.
Leavitt suggested the blame for the ongoing problems related to U.S. immigration falls on multiple past presidential administrations.
“The hard truth is that even when it comes to our legal immigration system, past presidents have failed to ensure that all prospective citizens love America, will add value and contribute to our communities, and will assimilate into our culture,” she said. “Leaders have a duty to defend and advance the interests of their own people, not foreign nationals.”
Quoting the Gospel of John, Leavitt also touched on the spiritual character of the two National Guard soldiers who were allegedly shot by Afghan refugee Rahmanullah Lakanwal just blocks from the White House last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.
U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who was 20 years old, died of her wounds the next day and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolf remains critically wounded, as of Monday. Lakanwal was charged with first-degree murder last Friday.
“Sarah and Andrew represent the very best of America — two young patriots who were willing to put on the uniform and risk their lives in defense of their fellow Americans. Both of them truly embody the profound words spoken by Jesus Christ in the Gospel: ‘Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,'” she said, quoting John 15:13.
“Sarah and Andrew are heroes, and we will never forget their sacrifice. That means ensuring the monster responsible for this atrocity is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and faces the most severe punishment possible. It also means reckoning with why this atrocity was allowed to happen in the first place, so that it may never occur again,” she added.
Leavitt blamed last week’s shooting in part on former President Joe Biden, under whose administration Lawanafahl entered the U.S. in 2021 as part of a program for Afghans who had worked with American troops in Afghanistan.
Trump expressed fury in the wake of the shooting, announcing a permanent pause on immigration from “all Third World Countries” while highlighting allegations that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a Somali-born Muslim who became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and represents much of Minneapolis, committed immigration fraud by marrying her brother. She had denied such allegations.
“She should go back!” Trump said of Omar in a Truth Social post on Monday.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
