Exclusive — Boebert Raises Alarm on Biden Administration Immigration Exemption: ‘Wanton Disregard for National Security’

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) led several of her Republican colleagues in reaching out to top Biden administration officials on Wednesday about an exemption the administration made to a section of immigration law that addresses ties to terrorism.

The letter, addressed to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and obtained by Breitbart News, details the Republicans’ “grave concern” with what they describe as a “wanton disregard for US national security interests” over the exemption.

The administration “utilized a small exemption to provide a reprieve to untold numbers of foreign nationals who have had various levels of affiliation with known terrorist organizations,” the Republicans write.

Read a copy of the letter below:

Mayorkas and Blinken issued a public notice in June detailing their plan to allow Afghans “who provided insignificant or certain limited material support to a designated terrorist organization” to “qualify for protection and other immigration benefits in the United States.”

The exemption notice came as part of the Biden administration’s massive operation to resettle Afghans in the U.S. after the U.S. military’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The exemption also aimed to accommodate those Afghan allies who “supported U.S. military interests,” those who worked as civil servants before the Taliban took over the country, or those who worked as civil servants while seeking to “mitigate the repressive actions of the Taliban.” The exemption was, however, made amid revelations of the Biden administration’s resettlement vetting failures, as detailed by Breitbart News’s John Binder.

The Republicans list numerous questions and document requests in their letter to the two secretaries about the exemption. They ask, in part:

Is there any willingness on the part of the government to edit the notice and pare down the enormous flexibility this latest action gives to career bureaucrats as to whether to admit those with ties to terrorist organizations or terrorist activity? Better still, would this regime be willing to rescind this sorely misguided and harmful public notice?

Citing the overall surge in illegal migration numbers in fiscal year 2022, the Republicans conclude, “This regime is failing in its most essential obligation; the safety and security of the American people is not a bargaining chip with which to advance your totalitarian leftist notions.”

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbat.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.