House GOP Funding Bill Brings More than 50,000 Afghans to U.S. on ‘Special Immigrant Visas’

A spending package from House Republicans provides Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) to 50,500 Afghan nationals looking to resettle in the United States. The move comes after former President Joe Biden brought nearly 100,000 Afghans to the U.S. in the largest resettlement operation, which has been plagued with vetting failures, posing serious national security risks.

House GOP leadership had initially sought to increase the number of Afghans brought to the U.S. on SIVs by more than 20,000, but almost a dozen Republicans objected to the plan. As a result, the spending bill allots 50,500 SIVs for Afghans hoping to resettle in American communities.

The State Department Inspector General (IG) has previously noted that the SIV program “relies on Taliban cooperation for SIV applicant relocation from the country because of a lack of a ground presence in Afghanistan.”

“The amendment extends the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program through this year in its current form until the Administration concludes its review of the program,” a senior GOP leadership aide told Politico.

House Republicans’ insistence on continuing the SIV program for Afghans comes after the Biden administration imported almost 100,000 Afghans within months of the U.S. Armed Forces’ retreat from Kabul, Afghanistan — many of whom were not screened or vetted in person by federal agents, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department has admitted.

In one such recent case, a 27-year-old Afghan man was arrested in Oklahoma last year after allegedly planning an Election Day terrorist attack on Americans. The man had been brought to the U.S. through Biden’s massive resettlement operation and applied for an SIV but was not approved.

In April 2023, a former Department of Defense (DOD) official revealed to Congress that some unvetted Afghans were resettled in the U.S. who were found to have been involved in placing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan to kill American troops.

In 2021, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) 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 refused to disclose the total.

In September 2022, the DHS Inspector General (IG) issued a bombshell report detailing how the Biden administration imported Afghans 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.

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.