The military personnel at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, did not properly track the Afghan evacuees staying on the base after their arrival, according to a new report from the Department of Defense inspector general.
The inspector general, which released the report earlier this month following a site visit in late September, roughly a month into its mission of housing the evacuees, found that the base “did not have controls in place to ensure accountability of the 3,755 Afghan evacuees under their supervision.”
The military presence on the base did not conduct additional accountability checks on evacuees after their initial documentation was completed after their arrival, even though other installations supporting Operation Allies Welcome did.
DEFENSE WATCHDOG WARNED AFGHAN AIR FORCE WOULD COLLAPSE WITHOUT US ASSISTANCE IN JANUARY 2021
Fort Lee conducted daily checks and issued badges with unique identifiers that evacuees were required to wear while officers at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst gave evacuees wristbands with a four-digit identification number.
At Quantico, personnel relied on Afghan leaders on the base to inform them of a missing person as well as on interagency partners.
“Without proper accountability of personnel, it was difficult for TF Quantico personnel to determine if any Afghan evacuees were missing in an emergency or other unexpected events,“ the report states.
Despite not keeping track of the evacuees, there were other security measures in place.
The base had “several layers” of security including roaming patrols and civilian law enforcement officers from the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and the FBI to assist, if needed.
There was “one major criminal security incident and it involved an Afghan evacuee committing what appeared to be an unlawful act with a child,” and within a half hour, the Afghan was detained and turned over to the FBI for criminal processing.
The Quantico base, along with Fort Lee and Fort Bliss, no longer houses evacuees. The number has continued to decrease as more are settling in communities across the country.
While there are approximately 18,000 refugees still on five bases, roughly 57,000 have already resettled into various communities across the country, a DHS spokesperson told the Washington Examiner last week.
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The Unied States and allied nations began evacuating at-risk Afghans and foreigners out of Afghanistan in the middle of August after the Taliban overthrew the U.S.-supported government. More than 120,000 people were evacuated to other countries in the final two weeks of August, though thousands of others were left behind.
