The Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General (IG) will investigate allegations that President Joe Biden resettled nearly 400 Afghans across the United States who are listed as “potential threats” to national security.
Following the U.S. Armed Forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Biden opened a “humanitarian parole” pipeline that has resettled more than 86,000 Afghans in American communities, many of which were not screened or interviewed in person.
Last month, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) detailed allegations from a whistleblower who claims that 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.
“According to new allegations, 324 individuals evacuated from Afghanistan were allowed to enter the United States, despite appearing on the DoD’s Biometrically Enabled Watchlist,” Hawley and Johnson’s letter to DOD IG Sean O’Donnell states:
Furthermore, the whistleblower alleges that political appointees at the National Security Council and DOD instructed agency personnel to cut corners when processing evacuees in Afghanistan and at staging bases in Europe, also known as “lily pads.” [Emphasis added]
According to the whistleblower rather than administer fingerprint tests on all ten fingers, personnel were told to abbreviate their tests in order to promote the rushed evacuation from Afghanistan. [Emphasis added]
This week, O’Donnell responded, stating the DOD IG would open an investigation into the whistleblower allegations regarding Biden’s vetting failures for Afghans entering the U.S.
The whistleblower allegations come as a series of reports have indicated that the Biden administration failed to vet thousands of Afghans who were subsequently resettled in American communities.
Other reports, sounding the alarm on the issue, include:
- DOD IG report states unvetted Afghans flagged for “security concerns” were brought to the U.S. and many cannot be located.
- Project Veritas investigation concludes a handful of Afghans resettled across the U.S. are listed in the government’s “Terrorism Watch List” database.
- GOP Senators reveal Biden’s agencies continued to refuse to use a critical DOD database to vet Afghan arrivals.
- DHS IG report states that Afghans who were “not fully vetted” were admitted to the U.S. by the Biden administration despite their posing national security risks.
The Afghan population in the U.S. has exploded in recent years.
The number of Afghans living in the U.S. has shot up to 133,000 in 2019 — more than three times the 44,000 Afghans who lived in the U.S. before the start of the Afghanistan War in 2001, according to an analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies.
Afghan immigrant households use more than three times the food stamps as native-born American households. In 2010, about 19 percent of Afghan immigrant households used food stamps, but that total has skyrocketed to 35 percent in 2019.
Likewise, the percentage of Afghan immigrant households that live in or near the U.S. poverty line is close to 51 percent. This is significantly higher than that of households headed by native-born Americans, where about 27 percent live in or near poverty.
Reporting by Breitbart News.
