Despite assurances from the Biden administration, Afghans brought to the U.S. after the Taliban took over the country are not being thoroughly vetted.
Part of the problem is out of the administration’s control: Digital records for Afghans is virtually nonexistent. As The New York Times reported, “Flight manifests have been at times incomplete or missing, visa or citizenship status is unknown, and there is a lack of basic demographic data.”
Yet the administration is still claiming these refugees are being thoroughly vetted.
This isn’t possible, the Times noted, explaining the situation in the final days of the Afghanistan rescue mission:
Refugees pushed their way onto airplanes. Hundreds of children were separated from their parents. Rogue flights landed without manifests. Security vetting of refugees was done in hours or days, rather than months or years.
Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell told Fox News Friday night that the Biden administration’s vetting process was “a disaster.” Grenell said multiple contacts within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Embassy in Germany have told him the vetting process is a crisis.
“The Biden administration team is asking career officials to put these people through quickly, when there is a lack of information, when they don’t have documentation. They’re being told to use a hunch. Use your own internal mechanism to know whether or not these individuals should come to the United States,” Grenell said, adding that he is “very nervous” about the vetting process.
Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell says top U.S. officials have informed him that Biden’s vetting process for Afghan nationals is a disaster, noting many do not have documentation and that the admin is telling officials to go with their gut feeling pic.twitter.com/dysScq1wZb
— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) September 4, 2021
Media outlets have reported that some of the Afghans who have made it to the U.S. have had serious issues. The Associated Press reported on Friday that “U.S. officials are looking into reports that in the frantic evacuation of desperate Afghans from Kabul, older men were admitted together with young girls they claimed as ‘brides’ or otherwise sexually abused.”
The Daily Wire reported that dozens of Afghans evacuated from Kabul were flagged for having potential ties to the Taliban or other terrorist groups.
“A lot of people were moved very quickly and the intelligence community has been working hard to evaluate whether any of them pose a threat,” a senior federal law enforcement official told NBC News. “Some of the vetting occurs while they are overseas, and some of it occurs here … We are not going to allow people to intentionally be released into the community if they have unresolved derogatory information.”
NBC added:
Of more than 30,000 evacuees from Afghanistan to the U.S., about 10,000 needed additional screening as of Friday, said the sources, and of those about 100 were flagged for possible ties to the Taliban or terror groups. Two of those 100 raised enough concern for additional review.
Other evacuees who are currently being evaluated in the D.C. area were found to have been deported from the U.S. previously for past criminal offenses, said two sources briefed on the data. The Department of Homeland Security is now deciding what to do with the individuals.