One of two National Guard members who were critically injured in a shooting near the White House on Wednesday has died, while the other is fighting for his life. According to US law enforcement sources, the suspect is a 29-year-old Afghan refugee, who entered the US in September 2021.

From his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, President Trump condemnedthe attack as an "act of terror" and blamed former US President Joe Biden's administration for admitting the alleged shooter into the country after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. 

DW Fact check reviewed Trump's key claims. 

Trump's '20 million migrants' claim doesn't add up

Claim: "The last administration let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world," Donald Trump stated in his remarks.

DW Fact check: False

While immigration numbers surged under Biden, Trump's figures are far from reality.

According to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, based on official data, including the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), from 2021-24, "more than 5.8 million migrants had been paroled into the country or otherwise allowed entry to pursue asylum applications and other immigration cases." 

Since Biden took office in January 2021, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded about 10.8 million encounters nationwide from October 2021 until September 2024, the House Committee on Homeland Security reported. However, these are not single individuals — many were counted multiple times. 

The Pew Research Center estimatesthe "unauthorized immigrant" population in the US reached 14 million in 2023, up by 3.5 million during Biden's first two years, the largest figure on record. Growth slowed significantly in the second half of 2024 after the Biden administration halted asylum processing at the border and suspended parole programs.

Even when we combine the 5.8 million migrants counted by the DHS from 2021-24 with the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants by the Pew Research Center for the Biden administration, the total does not approach 20 million.

What is known about the alleged shooter? 

Claim: Trump's statement about the shooter: "Based on the best available information the Department of Homeland Security is confident that the suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan… He was flown in by the Biden Administration in September 2021 on those infamous flights that everybody was talking about... His status was extended under legislation signed by President Biden."

DW Fact check: True 

In his statement, Trump cited DHS information indicating that the Afghan suspect entered the US during Biden's presidency, but he omitted the fact that his own administration had previously granted asylum to him.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, posted on X that the suspect was "one of the many unvetted, mass-paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration." Her message was also published as an official statement on the DHS website.

A relative of the suspect, speaking to NBC News, confirmed the entry into the US in September 2021 and stated that the suspect had served in the Afghan army for 10 years alongside the US Special Forces.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe also confirmed in an interview with Fox News Digital that the Afghan national had worked with various government entities in the past "as a member of a partner force in Kandahar" and claimed the Biden administration had "justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the US government."

Indeed, Operation Allies Welcome was launched by the DHS on August 29, 2021, under Biden's government. Its goal was to resettle vulnerable Afghans, including those who had assisted US efforts in Afghanistan, following the withdrawal of US troops. One of the Afghans to be resettled was the suspect of the DC shooting.

However, several US media outlets (e.g. CNN) have reported, based on "law enforcement sources," that he applied for asylum in 2024 and it was granted it in April 2025 when Trump was back in office. DW Fact check has not been able to verify this information independently.

Most Afghans admitted under the program initially received a two-year humanitarian parole and in the suspect's case this would have expired in 2023. As of publication, DHS had not confirmed details about the suspect's status at the time of his asylum application, despite inquiries by DW Fact check.

No evidence of Somali migrants 'ripping off' Minnesota

In his remarks this week, Trump also talked about another migrant group, accusing them of "ripping off" and "ripping apart" the state of Minnesota.

Claim: "An example is Minnesota, where hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country and ripping apart that once-great state," Trump said.

DW Fact check: Unproven

Neither Trump's claim about the number of Somali migrants nor his accusation that they are exploiting the US is supported by facts. 

Trump recently announced plans to end temporary deportation protections for Somalis living in Minnesota. "Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It's OVER!" the US president wroteon his platform, Truth Social.  

Minnesota's Somali community has faced scrutiny after the publication of a report titled "The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,"by City Journal, a public policy magazine and website run by the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. It alleges that there are large-scale welfare fraud schemes in the state and some are linked to informal money transfers to Somalia. It also suggests that funds may have reached Al-Shabaab, a jihadi militant organization based in Somalia, but this has not been confirmed by official indictments.

The Department of Justice, the US Attorney's Office for Minnesota, and the Office of Inspector General are currently conducting investigations into the matter. Prosecutors have confirmedthat these cases go beyond overbilling — they often involve fictitious companies and organized fraud rings. But the claim that taxpayer money has funded terrorism remains unverified. So far, only individual Somali-US citizens have been charged with fraud.

The Somali population in the US has grown steadily over the past three decades. According to the 2020 US Census, 221,043 people identified as Somali, either alone or in combination with other backgrounds.

The 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) found 169,799 individuals with Somali origins in the US. Many

were US-born, while 92,401 were born in Somalia.
Minnesota hosts the largest Somali community in the US, which is estimated at 87,000.

Trump's remarks appear to mix facts with exaggeration and omission. While the Afghan suspect did enter under Biden's evacuation program, the processing of his asylum status seems to have been finalized under Trump. Claims of about "20 million migrants" and Somali communities "ripping off" the US lack factual support.

Edited by: Rachel Baig