Biden admin evacuated 55 Afghans on terror watchlist to US during botched withdrawal: DOJ watchdog
US officials encountered 55 Afghan evacuees on the terrorist watchlist after the Biden administration’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal from the Middle Eastern country, according to a Justice Department inspector general report. The report, released Tuesday, confirmed longstanding suspicions from Republican lawmakers that the Biden administration failed to properly vet US-bound refugees as the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. “I’ve sounded the alarm about the need to thoroughly vet Afghan evacuee applicants since August 2021,” Sen.Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement, reacting to the DOJ IG report.
“The Biden-Harris administration, my Democrat colleagues in Congress and many in the media were quick to dismiss glaring red flags that a nonpartisan national security analysis now confirms.” The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) identified 55 Afghans that were either already on the terrorist watchlist and made it to a US port of entry or were added to the database during the evacuation and resettlement process, the report found. Of those, at least 21 were added to the terror list after they had already entered the US.After investigations, the FBI eventually removed 46 evacuees from the watchlist, determining that they posed no threat to the homeland. However, nine remained in the terror database as of July 2024 and eight were in the US. “As if it wasn’t already obvious, the Biden-Harris administration endangered American lives by allowing suspected terrorists to enter the United States and roam free for years,” Grassley argued, noting that his “oversight of this matter will continue.”Roughly 90,000 Afghans were allowed entry into the US and became eligible for Special immigrant Visas under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Refuge (OAR) and Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) programs, which provided the foreign nationals immigration processing and resettlement support.“According to the FBI, the need to immediately eva...