Someone who was freed from prison by the Taliban gained entry into the United States through the evacuation from Afghanistan, a federal audit has revealed.
President Joe Biden’s administration launched Operation Allies Refuge /Operation Allies Welcome in a bid to rescue the Afghan nationals who earned eligibility for a special immigrant visa by working for the U.S. government or other relevant organizations. The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security established a vetting process, but the chaos of the evacuation under the eyes of the reconquering Taliban presented a difficult task for Customs and Border Protection officials.
“CBP did not always have critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect Afghan evacuees arriving as part of OAR/OAW,” DHS inspector general investigators concluded in a Sept. 6 memorandum. “We determined some of the information used to vet evacuees through U.S. Government databases, such as name, DOB, identification number, and travel document data, was inaccurate, incomplete, or missing. CBP also admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States.”
A pair of Afghan nationals “who posed a risk to national security and the safety of local communities” gained entry into the U.S. through evacuation, according to a federal audit that raises the specter of additional vetting errors. The findings could raise questions about the effort to move evacuated Afghans waiting at overseas “lily pads” for entry into the U.S. They also threaten to impede the passage of federal legislation designed to widen the path to legal residency.
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“These failures raise serious concerns about public safety and national security,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, said Thursday. “Congress should not consider sweeping status immigration changes for evacuees unless and until this administration guarantees the integrity of and fully responds to long-standing oversight requests regarding their vetting and resettlement process.”
The vetting mistakes were a function of flawed documentation and the neglect to “develop a backup plan for validating the identity of Afghan evacuees entering the United States” at ports of entry. Nonetheless, in the case of the person freed from prison by the Taliban, a CBP official “identified derogatory information” as that person tried to enter the U.S. — but the note of caution was overruled.
“However, a supervisor ‘unreferred’ the individual and paroled the individual into the country without a secondary inspection,” the memorandum reads. “Although the supervisor acted within policy, we could not determine whether the supervisor was aware of the evacuee’s prior incarceration.”
FBI officials flagged the former inmate after “approximately 3 weeks,” leading to that person’s deportation.
The report does not identify the location of the inmate’s imprisonment, but it specifies that the Taliban released the person “in August 2021.” The Taliban opened the doors to a prison at Bagram Air Base on Aug. 15, freeing thousands of the most dangerous Taliban and Islamic State terrorists in the country — one of whom carried out the suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport that killed 13 U.S. service members in the final days of the evacuation.
“CBP paroled another evacuee into the United States who posed national security concerns,” the report reads. “The evacuee initially cleared vetting at the lily pad, and 3 months after being paroled into the United States, CBP obtained derogatory information from the FBI. According to ICE, at the time of our audit, the individual was undergoing removal proceedings.”
DHS officials “did not concur” with either of the watchdog’s recommendations for how to improve the process, including a proposal to “provide evidence of full screening and vetting based on confirmed identification” and to conduct “recurrent vetting” of the people who entered the country as humanitarian parolees.
“DHS responded that it was proud of its OAW efforts and highlighted multiple agencies involved in the screening and vetting of the Afghan evacuees,” the memo reads. “The OIG acknowledges the interagency efforts supporting this unprecedented event to screen and vet all evacuees. However, DHS’s response does not address the concerns of this audit and the recommendations which are aimed at reviewing the execution of OAW’s efforts and improving future, similar OAW efforts.”
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That dispute galvanized Grassley’s critique. “That’s no way to protect the homeland,” he said. “The fact that Biden appointees at DHS had the audacity to criticize this report instead of taking steps to fix the problems tells you what you need to know.”
