Rep. Riley Moore of West Virginia said the family of Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is pleading for prayers as the National Guardsman fights to survive an ambush attack in Washington on the day before Thanksgiving.
Mr. Moore, a Republican, said he spoke to Sgt. Wolfe’s family as they kept watch at the hospital.
“He is hanging on, he is fighting for his life,” Mr. Moore told CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that the family said, “Please, just continue to pray, it’s working.”
“They represent the best of West Virginia,” he said.
Sgt. Wolfe, 24, was shot Wednesday with 20-year-old Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, a fellow West Virginian who died from her injuries in a D.C.-area hospital.
Suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, resettled in the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Welcome after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. He had worked in a special Afghan army unit known as a Zero Unit, which had CIA support. He showed increasingly erratic behavior and depression while in the U.S., according to emails reviewed by The Associated Press.
Mr. Lakanwal faces charges of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said more charges are likely.
Mr. Moore said the suspect should not have been roaming U.S.streets. He said initial vetting of resettled Afghans after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021 was done in such a “rushed manner” that it led to mistakes.
“We do need to start re-vetting these folks,” Mr. Moore said.
President Trump vowed to re-vet every Afghan admitted over the last four years, as well as search for other foreign threats within the immigrant population.
Some Democrats pushed back Sunday on Mr. Trump’s plan, saying he was using the tragedy to divide people or impose burdens on persons who had gone through a rigorous process.
“Many of them worked alongside U.S. service members and provided a valuable service to the United States of America and deserve an opportunity to resettle in our country,” Sen. Mark Kelly, Arizona Democrat, said of resettled Afghans during the “State of the Union.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, took exception to Mr. Trump’s social media posts claiming Somali gangs had taken over parts of her state.
The senator said Mr. Trump took a tragedy involving an Afghan national in Washington and “somehow indicted an entire group of people, 80,000 of them in my state.”
“This is what he does,” Ms. Klobuchar said. “He tries to stoke division and make people hate each other.”
