Millions of Americans across our great country gathered with family last week for Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoyed all of God’s blessings. Memories were made that will last a lifetime. Sadly, for one West Virginia family, Thanksgiving will hereafter forever remind them of 2025—the year their precious daughter was assassinated in Washington, D.C., by an Islamist terrorist who should not have been in America.

This horrific act of violence is yet another reminder that the only reason we are able to live as free men and women in this extraordinary nation is that heroic Americans are willing to lay down their lives to keep us safe.

One such heroine was West Virginia Army National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. She graduated two years ago from Webster County High School. Friends and family described her as a “peacekeeper,” quick to help others. Sarah dreamed of becoming an FBI agent someday. That led her to join the National Guard as part of a police unit, hoping this might eventually help her achieve her dream of being in federal law enforcement. She was serving in our nation’s capital when she was murdered.

West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey attended the candlelight vigil for her in Webster Springs. He said she was someone who “loved her state, she loved her country, and she wanted to serve.”¹ Sarah Beckstrom was raised a Christian. Her father sat at her bedside holding her hand when she succumbed to her wounds. “My baby girl has passed to glory,”² he said.

Another West Virginia guardsman, U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, was also grievously wounded and is clinging to life as I write this. He and his family are in our prayers.

This cannot be said often enough: Without young men and women like Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe, we and our families would be at the mercy of men who worship death.

One such man is the 29-year-old assassin who killed Sarah Beckstrom—Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal. He was brought into the United States by the Biden–Harris administration after their disastrous, mismanaged withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. An estimated 200,000 Afghans came to America under the Operation Allies Welcome program. Many were not “vetted” properly because of the chaos that broke out when the Kabul airport was not properly secured. That poor planning led to thirteen American servicemen and servicewomen being killed in a terrorist bombing at the airport.

Lakanwal had worked with the U.S. government in Afghanistan for more than a decade, starting at age fifteen. Reportedly, he was in an Afghan special forces team known as Zero Unit, controlled by the CIA. When he was brought to America, he settled in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife, five children, and possibly two nephews. In November, he left Bellingham and drove across the United States to Washington, D.C., where he killed Sarah. This wasn’t an isolated incident. The day before the attack, another Afghan “refugee” was arrested for threatening to bomb sites in Fort Worth, Texas.

This White House sprang into action. The Trump administration announced that all pending asylum decisions and the processing of immigration requests by Afghan nationals have been suspended “pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”³ President Trump declared, “We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country.”⁴ In addition, the State Department has suspended visas for anyone traveling with an Afghan passport.

These steps are necessary because, during the Biden presidency, millions of people who came from cultures rejecting our Judeo-Christian traditions and values were allowed to enter America. This was often justified in the name of compassion, but that compassion was not tempered by discernment and common sense. America’s founders drew many of the key ideas of our Republic from the Bible. In the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, they wrote the most important words of our new nation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”⁵ The “Creator” is the God of the Bible—the one and only God.

Based on that truth, our country has brought more freedom and opportunity to more people than any other nation in the world. Without America, the world would sink into another dark age.

When migrants, refugees, immigrants, legal or illegal, enter our country, they do not “magically” embrace the key principles on which our nation was built. Most Islamic countries are overwhelmingly antisemitic. In addition, in countries such as Afghanistan and Somalia, women are treated as possessions. The United States government has made no attempt in recent years to determine whether someone coming to America is bringing with them cultural ideas, hatred, rejection of women’s rights, and other attitudes inconsistent with our traditions and values. Many of our institutions, including schools, no longer attempt to assimilate immigrant populations. Universities are often teaching anti-American history.

The first responsibility of our government must be to keep our citizens—of all ethnicities—safe. Irresponsible mass migration is a threat to public safety. As we get ready to celebrate our 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, we must immediately reform immigration policies to ensure that we allow people whom our country needs to come to America. They must want to embrace American ideals, including ordered liberty under God. We must stop importing hate. If we don’t, we are unlikely to celebrate a 300th birthday.

1. Amelia Ferrell Knisely, “‘Quiet strength’ — Sarah Beckstrom’s West Virginia hometown remembers slain National Guard member.” West Virginia Watch, November 29, 2025, https://westvirginiawatch.com/2025/11/29/quiet-strength-sarah-beckstroms-west-virginia-hometown-remembers-slain-national-guard-member/
2. Lowell Cauffiel, “Father of slain National Guard member ‘My baby girl has passed to glory.’” Breitbart, November 28, 2025, https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2025/11/28/father-slain-guard-member-my-baby-girl-has-passed-glory/
3. Joe Walsh, “Trump administration pauses all immigration applications from Afghans after National Guard shooting in D.C.,” CBS News, November 27, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-pauses-immigration-applications-afghanistan-national-guard-shooting-dc/
4. Walsh, “Trump administration pauses.”
5. US National Archives and Records Administration. “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription.” Last reviewed August 7, 2025. National Archives. Accessed December 1, 2025. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript