by WorldTribune Staff, August 26, 2021
Some 100 Afghans who were evacuated as the Taliban seized power and are awaiting resettlement in the U.S. are on the Defense Department’s terrorism watch lists, a report said.
The Afghans “flagged” for being on the watch lists were prospective recipients of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV), Defense One reported on Aug. 24.
The report cited an official as saying that in “most cases” the Afghans were “cleared by follow-on screening” for resettlement in the U.S.
“Defense Department’s Automated Biometric Identification System has flagged up to 100 of the 7,000 Afghans evacuated as prospective recipients of Special Immigration Visas as potential matches to intelligence agency watch lists,” the report said.
“There’s certainly been a number of them” who triggered alerts, requiring agents to pull those evacuees aside for further screening, a U.S. official told Defense One.
Related: America under attack: Taliban among refugees? Abandoned military hardware itemized; Who is in charge?, August 25, 2021
NBC News reported that fraud is already occurring within Team Biden’s massive Afghanistan-to-U.S. resettlement effort.
At the Kabul airport, State Department officials said there have been five cases where Afghans attempted to use fraudulent American passports to try to get on flights bound for the U.S. The passports, the officials said, did not belong to the Afghans.
Team Biden is looking to fast-track tens of thousands of Afghans into the U.S. interior over the next few weeks. Some 6,000 Afghans have arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia this week. Many of them are headed to various states for permanent resettlement, including Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, reports noted.
“Though Biden has repeatedly suggested that Afghans are being fully vetted and screened outside the U.S., thousands are arriving each day who have not yet completed their immigration processing,” Breitbart’s John Binder noted in an Aug. 25 report.
The Biden administration announced this week that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would use its authority to provide thousands of Afghans with “humanitarian parole” to come to the U.S. These are Afghans who do not qualify for SIVs, refugee status, or the newly created P-2 visa.
Potentially 50,000 Afghans could be given humanitarian parole to arrive in the U.S.
“Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers,” Binder noted.
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