How have Afghan refugees been vetted under Biden?

The shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., one of whom later died, prompted the Trump administration to make major changes to immigration policy.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the suspect, who is from Afghanistan, entered the United States under the Afghan resettlement plan launched during the Biden administration.

And Republican officials claimed, without providing evidence, that he was not vetted.

DHS has suspended processing all immigration requests involving Afghan nationals “pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”

DHS said the suspect, Rahmanullah Rakanwal, 29, entered the United States under Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), an Afghan resettlement plan.

The plan was launched in August 2021 under the Biden administration to resettle “vulnerable” Afghans after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan that same year.

“They came in, they weren’t vetted, they weren’t verified,” said Trump, who called a reporter “stupid” for asking why he blamed the Biden administration for the attack on Washington.

At an FBI press conference, FBI Director Kash Patel claimed that the previous administration “decided to allow thousands of people to enter this country without a single background check or screening.”

And in a press release the day of the attack, DHS said the suspect was “one of thousands of unvetted Afghan nationals admitted under the Biden administration’s Operation Coalition Welcome program.”

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He made similar comments about the screening failure in an interview with CBS earlier this year. Vance highlighted the case of an Afghan national who was evacuated to the United States after the Taliban took over and was later charged with terrorism-related crimes.

Lakanwal entered the United States via OAW on September 8, 2021, shortly after the fall of Kabul.

Many Afghans were at serious risk of persecution from the Taliban, especially those who had collaborated with Western governments.

A report released this year by the U.S. State Department said more than 190,000 Afghans have been resettled under OAW and another program called Enduring Welcome.

Most Afghan nationals who arrive under the OAW program are granted permission to remain in the country for two years under a process called “parole.”

Paroled Afghans must undergo reporting requirements (such as medical examinations and required immunizations) and may lose their right to remain in the United States if these requirements are not met.

Those who took ‘substantial risks’ to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan were recognized as lawful permanent residents after completing the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) process.

According to the charity AfghanEvac, Lakanwal was currently applying for SIV but was granted asylum this year under the current Trump administration.

We reached out to the White House to learn more about Lakanwal’s investigation. They didn’t provide this, but they told us:

“This animal would never have been here if not for Joe Biden’s dangerous policies that allowed countless unidentified criminals to invade our country and harm the American people.

“The Trump administration, despite continued opposition from Democrats, is doing everything possible to drive these monsters out of our country and clean up the mess the Biden administration has created.”

We also contacted DHS and CIA, but they did not respond.

Even if we don’t know the investigative arrangements prior to the suspect’s entry into the United States, we know how the investigation should have worked given the plans for his arrival.

The government’s website for the OAW plan, last updated earlier this year, refers to a “rigorous” and “multi-layered” screening process that will collect biometric information such as fingerprints and photographs before being allowed into Afghanistan.

Several government agencies involved in the investigation are mentioned, including the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center.

Alejandro Mayorkas, then the Secretary of Homeland Security, said in 2021 that the government had “established a robust vetting and investigation architecture” under the plan.

There were mixed reports about the effectiveness of program reviews.

A 2022 audit conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), a U.S. government oversight agency, found that “some information used to vet evacuees through U.S. government databases (e.g. names, dates of birth, identification numbers, travel document data) was inaccurate, incomplete, or missing.”

The OIG said the problem was in part because DHS did not have a list of Afghan refugees who “lacked sufficient identification documentation.”

Additionally, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that it had “admitted or paroled refugees who had not been fully screened for entry into the United States.”

Two years later, another OIG audit of the plan found weaknesses in the government’s ability to identify potentially negative information (e.g., national security concerns) about some Afghan parolees.

But earlier this year, the OIG praised the FBI’s role in screening Afghans for the scheme.

“Overall, we found that each element of the FBI’s responsibility effectively communicated and addressed the potential national security risks identified,” he said.

In addition to reviewing OAW’s audit, BBC Verification contacted a number of experts to obtain their views on the audit process.

Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration analyst at the Cato Institute think tank, said the program was “more inconsistent than usual by the OIG account and compared to more intensive refugee screening procedures.”

“Due to the chaotic nature of the evacuation, information was lost and some checks were not carried out until migrants were already out of Afghanistan.”

Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration advocacy group, told the BBC she was at the US military base where the refugees were first processed.

“Refugees were processed at military bases and detained for weeks, even months, until they were ready to enter the United States, where they were subject to extensive security screening and medical screening,” she said.

“Even the best judge cannot predict the future. He (Lakanwal) may have had a clean record and would have been a suitable candidate for humanitarian protection, but something may have changed.”

In the four years since the evacuation, thousands of Afghans have safely settled in the United States, the first major event, Mr. Murray said.

“Just because one person committed a terrible act does not mean that other Afghans now pose a threat,” she added.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that the suspect had collaborated with the CIA in Afghanistan.

The BBC’s Afghanistan Service interviewed a soldier from Lakanwal’s former army, the Kandahar Strike Force (KSF).

The soldier said vetting to enter the unit took about three to four weeks and included obtaining a recommendation from a senior KSF officer and conducting a “call log check” of mobile devices.

If a candidate passes that stage, they may be subject to a security check conducted in the United States that involves collecting the applicant’s biometric data.

The Afghan military spoke to the KSF unit commander to confirm the soldier’s identity and corroborate the soldier’s statement, adding that criminal record checks were also part of the screening process.