Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) are sounding the alarm over poor vetting procedures for President Joe Biden’s mass resettlement of Afghans, some deemed a “national security concern,” across the United States.
Grassley, in letters to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray, asked the agencies to make public the number of Afghans — brought to the U.S. by the Biden administration in 2021 — who were not properly vetted and who may pose a national security threat.
“Describe, in detail, actions the FBI has taken to monitor Afghan evacuees deemed a significant or potentially significant national security concern,” Grassley requested:
How many Afghan evacuees deemed a national security concern are currently located in the United States? Is the FBI aware of their location?
How many Afghan evacuees deemed a national security concern have been cleared and are no longer deemed a concern?
WATCH: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Admits Failure to Check Afghan Migrants:
C-SPANGrassley notes the DHS IG report which details extreme failures in vetting Afghans who have since been resettled across the U.S. and later convicted of crimes like sexual assault, indecent exposure, and child sex crimes.
“Unfortunately, this report confirms the concerns I, and my colleagues, outlined previously — that the Biden administration failed to properly vet Afghan evacuees,” Grassley wrote:
Specifically, the report notes DHS has a “fragmented process for identifying and resolving issues for noncitizens with derogatory information, including Operation Allies Welcome parolees.” Further, DHS’s approach “creates potential gaps in CBP, USCIS, and ICE’s responsibility for terminating parole, initiating removal proceedings, or monitoring parole expiration.” [Emphasis added]
The report also noted the FBI’s refusal to provide U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) with full access to its National Crime Information Center Interstate Identification Index (Triple I) System. According to the DHS OIG report, this refusal was because “the FBI does not consider USCIS a criminal justice agency and deems immigration and naturalization issues as noncriminal justice matters.” The DHS OIG report also found that OAW parolees “were later convicted of committing crimes such as abusive sexual contact with a minor, indecent exposure, sexual assault, auto grand larceny, assault, and battery.” The Biden administration’s failure to properly vet evacuees and the FBI’s concurrent failure to provide full access to the Triple I system have put American communities at risk. [Emphasis added]
WATCH: DOD Official Confirms Lack of Vetting for Afghans on Planes:
Grassley asked Mayorkas and Wray to respond to his requests by July 9.
The massive resettlement operation brought nearly 100,000 Afghans to American communities in a matter of months — often without having been interviewed in-person.
The resettlement operation has been plagued with reported vetting failures since its inception when Afghans started arriving at Dulles International Airport in 2021.
In April 2023, a former Department of Defense (DOD) official revealed to Congress that some Afghans were resettled in the U.S. before they were found to have been involved in placing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan to kill American troops.
In 2021, Grassley requested information about the number of Afghans who sought entry to the U.S. and were listed on the federal government’s “No Fly List” because of their ties to Islamic terrorism. Biden’s top agency officials have refused to disclose the total.
In September 2022, the DHS IG issued a bombshell report detailing how the Biden administration brought Afghans to the U.S. who were “not fully vetted” and could “pose a risk to national security.”
Similarly, in February 2022, a DOD IG report revealed that Biden’s agencies failed to properly vet Afghans who arrived in the U.S. and that about 50 Afghans were flagged for “significant security concerns” after their resettlement.
WATCH: Sec. Blinken: Most Afghans Not Vetted Before Getting on Planes:
Most of the unvetted Afghans flagged for possible terrorism ties, the DOD IG report stated, have since disappeared into American communities. The report noted that as of September 17, 2021, only three of 31 Afghans flagged with specific “derogatory information” could be located.
In August 2022, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) detailed allegations from a whistleblower who claimed the Biden administration knowingly resettled almost 400 Afghans in the U.S. who were listed as “potential threats” in federal databases and urged staff to cut corners in the vetting process.
In May 2022, a Project Veritas report alleged the Biden administration resettled Afghans listed on the federal government’s “Terrorism Watch List” in American communities.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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