America has always been a beacon for those fleeing tyranny and hardship, but there’s a line between compassion and carelessness. Open borders and hasty refugee programs aren’t acts of kindness—they’re invitations to chaos that American families pay for in blood and treasure. The past week’s events in Washington, D.C., and Minnesota lay bare the folly of the Biden-era rush to resettle thousands without ironclad checks. These aren’t isolated slips; they’re symptoms of a system rigged against the very people it’s meant to protect.
Consider the ambush in the shadow of the White House. On a crisp Wednesday afternoon, two National Guard troops—Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe and Specialist Sarah Beckstrom—were gunned down in cold blood, mere steps from the president’s doorstep. Beckstrom didn’t make it; she succumbed to her wounds the next day. The terrorist? Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan who crossed the country from his home in Bellingham, Washington, to unleash what FBI Director Kash Patel called a “heinous act of terrorism.”
Lakanwal had worked alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan, earned asylum this year, and slipped into the country under Operation Allies Welcome—the chaotic Biden program that airlifted a massive number of Afghans after the 2021 Kabul debacle. President Trump didn’t mince words: “It was a crime against our entire nation.”
This wasn’t some rogue outlier. A recent inspector general report flagged 55 individuals from that same evacuation as terrorism watchlist matches—people who bypassed scrutiny in the fog of retreat. Vice President JD Vance, who warned about unvetted inflows as far back as 2021, saw his fears play out in real time. “They shouldn’t have been in our country,” he posted on X after the shooting, echoing old clips where he slammed the resettlement as a reckless gamble.
Trump’s response was swift: a full pause on Afghan immigration processing and a vow to “re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.” “If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” he added. It’s a stark reminder that gratitude isn’t guaranteed, and neither is safety.
Shift north to Minnesota, where another Biden legacy unravels in dollar signs and deceit. The state, once a model of Midwestern stability, now grapples with a $250 million fraud ring tied to a Somali-run charity called Feeding Our Future. Dozens of defendants—78 charged so far, many Somali nationals—allegedly cooked up fake meal programs during the COVID scramble, pocketing federal funds meant for starving kids.
Prosecutors say the scam laundered cash through ghost vendors and inflated claims of serving 60,000 meals a day, all while siphoning money back to Somalia. Worse, whispers from federal probes suggest trails leading to Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda offshoot that’s turned Somalia into a three-decades-long hellscape of warlords and bombs.
Republican lawmakers, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, fired off a letter demanding a U.S. attorney investigation: “The sprawling fraud that has become endemic under Governor Walz’s failed leadership is troubling enough… the notion that these dollars could be flowing to foreign terrorist organizations adds a truly disturbing and urgent dimension.”
Somalia’s collapse since 1991 has flooded the U.S. with refugees under Temporary Protected Status, shielding many nationwide from deportation. Minnesota absorbed the lion’s share, building the largest Somali diaspora outside the homeland. But as City Journal exposed, the influx brought more than families—it imported clan loyalties, informal hustles, and a deep-seated wariness of authority that clashes with America’s rule of law.
Trump called it out bluntly: Minnesota is “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” ripped apart by “Somali gangs terrorizing the people.” His fix? Immediate termination of TPS for Somalis in the state, a move cheered by taxpayers fed up with footing the bill for their own fleecing.
These scandals aren’t coincidences; they’re the rotten fruit of policies that prioritize optics over oversight. The Biden pullout from Afghanistan—hastened by a Trump deal but botched in execution—left behind $85 billion in gear for the Taliban and a refugee pipeline riddled with gaps. In Minnesota, lax audits turned welfare into a slush fund, with fraudsters exploiting the same generosity that sheltered them. One can’t help but wonder: How many more Lakanwals or launderers slipped through because bureaucrats feared “bigotry” accusations more than bullets or bankruptcy?
Trump’s playbook—vetting first, entry second—looks prescient now. Back in 2015, he proposed a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
The media howled “racist,” but events like these scream for pause. His latest salvos, including crackdowns on Muslim Brotherhood networks funded by Qatar, signal a reckoning long overdue. The administration’s broader strokes—slashing refugee caps to 7,500 annually, deploying ICE surges, and ending non-citizen benefits—aim to reclaim control before the experiment spirals further.
America’s strength lies in its sovereignty, not its softness. The Guard’s blood on D.C. streets and Minnesota’s drained coffers demand we enforce that truth. Let refugees prove their loyalty through deeds, not just documents. Anything less invites the very threats we swear to repel. As Trump put it after the shooting, it’s time to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.”
For the sake of Wolfe, Beckstrom, and every taxpayer stiffed, that starts today.
Third-worldees see America’s compassion as a ‘weakness to be exploited’.