DHS Secretary Mayorkas: Almost No Afghans Are Being Denied Entry to U.S.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies during a hearing to discuss
GREG NASH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says nearly all Afghans seeking entry to the United States are being approved for resettlement.

President Joe Biden has said he hopes to resettle about 95,000 Afghans across the U.S. over the next 12 months. In a 21-day period from August to September, Biden brought more than 48,000 Afghans to the U.S. for resettlement — a population more than four times that of Jackson, Wyoming.

During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Mayorkas said that almost none of the Afghans seeking to get resettled across the U.S. are being denied entry.

“So since the first of August, how many Afghan refugees have been denied acceptance into the United States?” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) asked, to which Mayorkas responded “I don’t have that number at my fingertips. I know it is very de minimis.”

“We have not found many people with derogatory information relative to those who qualify for admission to the United States by reason of their status,” Mayorkas said of the Afghans seeking U.S. entry.

There has been a flood of reports over the last month of fraud and abuse in Biden’s massive Afghan resettlement operation. Earlier this month, for instance, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Afghans “for understandable reasons” were committing visa fraud to get to the U.S.

The overwhelming majority of Afghans arriving in the U.S. every day do not qualify for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) or even refugee status. Instead, Afghans are arriving in the hopes of getting “humanitarian parole” and are allowed to land in the U.S. without having completed their immigration processing.

This month, the Washington Post reported that internal DHS records revealed that the Biden administration had mistakenly brought two convicted felon Afghans back to the U.S. as part of the operation after they had previously been deported.

In addition, one such Afghan brought to the U.S. and housed at Fort Pickett in Virginia has been arrested and charged with grand larceny after he allegedly jumped in a parked vehicle at the military base and drove around.

The same Post report stated that the Biden administration let a number of Afghans into the U.S. who were subsequently “flagged for suspected terrorist associations” and deemed “potential national security risks.”

National Public Radio (NPR) reported that Afghans are arriving in the U.S. sometimes with “no paperwork” to prove their identities or with “just scraps of paper.” Likewise, the Associated Press reported that Afghans have been caught lying about their identities or destroying their passports to conceal their true identities.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.

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