New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was “devastated” by the death of Sarah Beckstrom.
In a post on X, he asked followers to take a moment to think of those “who have been plunged into unimaginable grief”.
He wrote:
I’m devastated to learn of the passing of Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, a member of the West Virginia National Guard. She was only twenty years old.
As families across the nation come together today to celebrate Thanksgiving, let us take a moment to think of those in West Virginia who have been plunged into unimaginable grief.
Guardsman Andrew Wolfe still in critical condition
Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, 24, was “fighting for his life” following the attack, US president Donald Trump said.
Meanwhile, attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said on Friday that he remained in critical condition.
“We still have hope. He’s still in critical condition,” Pirro said. “We are doing everything we can to assist his family and to make sure that they have everything they need during this difficult time for them.
“We are all praying for Andrew Wolfe.”
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Gary Beckstrom, the father of West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, said in a Facebook post on Thursday that his daughter had died.
“My baby girl has passed to glory,” he wrote, adding that the loss was a “horrible tragedy” and asking friends not to be offended if he was unable to speak with them.
Suspect to face upgraded charges of murder in the first degree, says US attorney for DC
Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, this morning announced that charges against the suspected shooter were being upgraded.
Pirro told Fox News on Friday morning: “There are certainly many more charges to come, but we are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree.
“And we are hoping that the more information we can get and the more investigation that is going on 24/7 now, around the clock in Washington, the more we will find out about what actually happened in terms of this individual even being in this country and being in a position to ambush and shoot down an innocent young woman who was doing her duty to the people of this country.”
The Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief David Smith wrote this analysis after the shooting earlier this week:
“Washington DC is considered a safe zone,” Donald Trump declared on Tuesday, veering off topic at the national Thanksgiving turkey pardoning ceremony at the White House. “This was one of the most unsafe places anywhere in the United States. It is now considered a totally safe city.”
A day later, two national guardsmen from West Virginia were shot in a busy area a few blocks from the White House in downtown Washington. The ambush took place outside the Farragut West Metro railway station within sight of the Guardian’s office (I had been in the station three hours earlier and witnessed national guard troops milling around).
In a speech from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Wednesday evening, Trump said the suspect entered the US from Afghanistan in 2021. For the president it was a political opportunity and he was determined to exploit it. Immigration? Check. Law and order? Check. All Joe Biden’s fault? Check.
Trump accused his predecessor of allowing millions of violent criminals into the US and launched a xenophobic attack on Somalis in Minnesota: “Hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country, and ripping apart that once great state.” Notably, the previous evening, his aide Stephen Miller had decried “the Somalification of America”, telling Fox News: “Look how powerful the Democrat Party became in Minnesota once they flooded it with 100,000 Somalians!”
Then Trump announced a review of the status Afghan nationals in the US. “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.”
Raising the spectre of a newly aggressive crackdown by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the remarks came as little surprise from a president who has made illegal immigration central to his political identity. The White House regularly sends out lists and images of undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes and could not resist playing up the suspect’s nationality.
Trump was elected on a promise to crack down on illegal migration and his second term has been characterized by a campaign of mass deportations.
Construction sites and schools have been frequent targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous as America’s foreign-born workers account for nearly 31m jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Guardian’s immigration crackdown tracker has been keeping count of Trump’s enforcement drive:
Trump’s late-night Truth Social post was full of anti-immigrant invective.
The president blamed immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages as part of “social dysfunction” in America and demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION”.
Trump’s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.
The president asserted without evidence that millions of people born outside the US and now living there were to blame for America’s societal ills.
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump wrote. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”
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One of two US national guard soldiers shot in a targeted attack near the White House this week has died, while the second is fighting for his life, Donald Trump has announced.
As part of his Thanksgiving call to US troops late on Thursday, the US president said he had been informed that Sarah Beckstrom, 20, had succumbed to her wounds.
“Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, one of the guardsmen that we’re talking about, highly respected, young, magnificent person … She’s just passed away. She’s no longer with us,” Trump said in his first live remarks since the shooting on Wednesday.
Staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe, 24, is ‘fighting for his life’, Trump said. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters
Trump added that the second guard member, Staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe, 24, was “fighting for his life”.
Beckstrom’s father had told the New York Times in a phone call earlier in the day that his daughter was unlikely to recover. “I’m holding her hand right now,” Gary Beckstrom said. “She has a mortal wound. It’s not going to be a recovery.”
Trump steps up immigration crackdown after national guard member dies in DC attack
Donald Trump has said he will “permanently pause migration from all third world countries,” a day after two national guard members were shot in Washington DC in an attack that has become a political flashpoint in the president’s ongoing crackdown on immigration.
In a social media post beginning with “a very happy Thanksgiving,” sent after 11pm on Thursday, the US president said his administration would “end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens” and remove “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States”.
It as not clear how the president would enact such a “pause” in migration. Previous bans issued by his administration have faced challenges in the courts and in Congress.
Earlier in the night, Trump announced the death of Sarah Beckstrom, one of the two guard members shot in the attack close to the White House on Wednesday. Authorities suspect the shooting was carried out by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the US in September 2021 under a Biden-era programme that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands from Afghanistan after the chaotic US withdrawal from the country.
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