The U.S. has “no idea” of the possible threat posed by some Afghan nationals admitted to the U.S. during the Biden administration, according to Sen. Josh Hawley.  

About 200,000 Afghans were allowed into the U.S. during and after the U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021 under President Joe Biden.

Among those paroled, “we have no idea of their potential terrorist connections, and in many cases, we now have no idea where they are or what they’re doing, who they’re connected with, or what they’re capable of,” Hawley, R-Mo., said Wednesday at a Senate hearing on iden’s Afghan parolee program.  

“Sadly, we’ve seen what some of them are capable of,” Hawley said, referring to Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the 29 year-old Afghan male charged with the shooting of two National Guard members in D.C. in November that killed one and seriously injured the other.  

The Biden administration’s parolee program for Afghans was “hastily arranged,” Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, told members of the Senate subcommittees on Border Security and Immigration and Crime and Counterterrorism at the hearing.  

Among the “200,000 Afghans brought here under programs hastily arranged by the Biden administration since 2021, there are hundreds who should be deported,” Hankinson said. He added that gratitude to Afghans who served alongside the U.S. military during the nearly 20-year war does not automatically entail bringing them to the U.S..  

“The U.S. had other options,” he told the senators, including the creation of a “safe zone in Afghanistan” in a region run by “warlords who oppose the central government.”  

“Or instead of paying billions to bring Afghans to an alien country far from home, we could have paid neighboring countries, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, or even India to take them in,” Hankinson added. 

“These places have more in common with the Afghan culture, religion and way of life than any Western country.”  

In the case of the Afghans resettled in the U.S. after the 2021 withdrawal, vetting lacked sufficient safeguards, often due to nonexistent information or the Taliban’s refusal to share information, Hankinson explained.  

Lawmakers, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., argued for the importance of both vetting all foreign nationals paroled into the U.S. and honoring the service of those who assisted U.S. troops in Afghanistan–a sentiment shared by retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Perry Blackburn.  

The case against Lakanwal “does not represent the Afghan people I fought beside,” Blackburn told members of Congress.  

Blackburn is the founder of AFGfree, a nonprofit seeing to “evacuate US Citizens, our partners and their families by land, sea or air” from Afghanistan, according to the group’s mission statement.  

The Afghans “fought beside us, and they translated not just language, but culture. They helped us understand tribal dynamics, honor, and consequence,” Blackburn said, adding, “they bled, they died, they lived, [and] hey became like us.”  

Nadim Yousify, a former Platoon Sergeant in the U.S. Marines, served as an interpreter for the U.S. in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2015.  

“I committed myself to serving alongside Americans,” Yousify said, adding that because of his work with the U.S. military, he “became a target” of the Taliban in Afghanistan. After years of screening and vetting, Yousify was permitted to come to the U.S. through the Special Immigration Visa program.  

Today, Yousify is a nursing student in the U.S. and says he wants to continue serving the country.  

“I understand the concern raised in this hearing. National security matters. Public safety matters. No one who served alongside Americans, like I did, would ever dispute that,” Yousify said.

He added, “one person’s crime should never erase the sacrifice of 10,000 who stood with the American service members under fire.”  

Lakanwal worked under CIA direction in Afghanistan. Like thousands of other Afghans, he entered the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome. 

Since the tragic shooting that left Beckstrom dead, President Donald Trump has paused the issuance of visas for Afghan nationals.   

While witnesses and senators found consensus on the need for thorough vetting of foreign nationals entering the U.S., “successful vetting cannot predict future radicalization or action,” Hankinson said. “Admitting foreign nationals, however well screened, has inherent risk.”  

The post ‘No Idea’ of Threat Posed by Afghan Parole Program, Senator Warns   appeared first on The Daily Signal.