Q: What prompted your oversight of Afghan evacuees paroled into the United States since 2021?
A: Following the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, 13 American families will mourn forever the loss of their loved one when a suicide bomber attacked the airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021, killing 13 U.S. service members, including a 23-year-old Marine who grew up in Red Oak, Iowa. The tragic aftermath didn’t end on the day of the bombing. The emergency evacuation was a calamitous result of the Biden administration’s poorly planned departure after the Taliban seized control of the country. The ensuing airlift out of Kabul is reminiscent of the 1975 airlift out of Saigon during the fall of South Vietnam. Scenes from the chaotic evacuation seemed surreal as throngs of people sprinted across the tarmac trying to climb onto the departing military plane. In the span of 16 days, the U.S. evacuated American citizens and tens of thousands of Afghan nationals. The Biden administration launched a program called Operation Allies Welcome to relocate Afghans who had worked alongside U.S. forces or faced threats from the Taliban and were eligible to apply for U.S. Special Immigrant Visas (SIV). The Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 expanded the SIV program to protect Afghan citizens who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government and included eligibility requirements for those who provided faithful and valuable service to the U.S. government.
As part of my congressional oversight responsibilities, I work to ensure the executive branch faithfully executes the laws, as Congress intended. My oversight exposed a glaring problem with the Biden administration’s implementation of this program; it dropped the ball on proper precautions to rigorously screen every Afghan national cleared to resettle into the United States. The #1 job of the federal government is protecting the American people. That includes ensuring Afghan evacuees welcomed into the United States do not pose a national security risk. That’s why I’ve pressed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Justice (DOJ), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for answers on the botched vetting process to ensure people are properly screened and evacuees who shouldn’t have gotten into our country are removed.
Q: What lessons have been learned by your oversight of Operation Allies Welcome?
A: From rooting out wasteful spending or holding federal agencies accountable, I’ve learned that oversight matters. For example, I’ve sounded the alarm for more than four years about the urgent need to thoroughly vet Afghan evacuee applicants. In 2022, I asked then-FBI Director Chris Wray during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the program’s national security concerns and whether the FBI knew where Afghans posing potential security concerns were located inside the United States. This year, I asked a similar concern to FBI Director Kash Patel. Also this year, the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told my office an important data point: of the more than 100,000 Afghan evacuees – as of August 2022 – 1.6% had links to terrorism or other derogatory information. That means more than 1,600 people at that time posed a potential threat to our homeland. This summer, I called upon the Trump administration to aggressively investigate those evacuees and to shed light on the previous administration’s failure to vet them. Transparency brings accountability. The Biden administration was not honest with the American people about the program’s vetting vulnerabilities. Both DHS and DOJ watchdogs released reports confirming my oversight concerns and highlighted the vetting failures.
Tragically, an American family is in mourning for the recent killing of a U.S. service member near the White House while another family prays for the recovery of their loved one. An Afghan national who was welcomed into America under President Biden’s watch is accused of shooting these two members of the West Virginia National Guard. In the same week the two National Guardsmen were shot, an Afghan evacuee was arrested for threatening to bomb a building in Texas. The failure to thoroughly vet Afghan evacuees puts Americans in harm’s way and poses serious consequences yet unknown. I’m glad the Trump administration is responding to my oversight requests and for its efforts to fix the failures of the Biden administration’s resettlement of Afghan evacuees. My oversight will continue.