How were Afghan refugees vetted under Biden?

The shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC, 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 – from Afghanistan – had entered the US under an Afghan resettlement program launched during the Biden administration.

And Republican officials have claimed without evidence that it was not vetted.

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

DHS said the suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Luckanwal, entered the United States under Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), an Afghan resettlement program.

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

“It came in, it was unvetted, it was unchecked,” said President Trump, who called a reporter an “idiot” when asked why he blamed the Biden administration for the Washington attack.

At an FBI news conference, the agency’s director, Kash Patel, claimed that the previous administration “decided to allow thousands of people into this country without background checks or background checks”.

and in A press release on the day of the attackDHS said the suspect was “one of thousands of undocumented Afghan nationals allowed into the country under the Biden administration’s Operation Ally Welcome program”.

This week on X, Vice President JD Vance recalled comments he made in 2021 “Criticizing Biden’s Policy of Opening the Floodgates to Unidentified Afghan Refugees”.

He also criticized the inspection failures In an interview with CBS earlier this year. Vance highlighted the case of an Afghan national who was transferred to the United States after being captured by the Taliban. who was later charged with terrorism-related offences.

After the fall of Kabul, on September 8, 2021, Luckenwal entered the US through the OAW.

Many Afghans were at serious risk of persecution by the Taliban, especially those who worked with Western governments.

More than 190,000 Afghans have been resettled under the OAW and another program called Enduring Welcome, According to a report published this year by the US State Department.

Most Afghan nationals entering the OAW program were allowed to stay in the country for two years under a process known as “parole.”

Afghans on parole are subject to reporting requirements (such as medical examinations and critical immunizations) and may lose their right to remain in the US if they do not meet these requirements.

Those who took “significant risks” to support US forces in Afghanistan were admitted as lawful permanent residents after completing the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) process.

According to the charity Afghan Evac, Luckenwal had an active SIV application but was granted asylum this year under the current Trump administration.

We reached out to the White House for more information about Luckenwall’s investigation. It did not provide them but told us:

“This creature would never have been here because of Joe Biden’s dangerous policies that allowed countless unsuspecting criminals to invade our country and harm the American people.

“The Trump administration is doing everything it can to get these monsters out of our country and clean up the mess the Biden administration made — in the face of unrelenting Democrat opposition.”

We also contacted DHS and the CIA, who did not get back to us.

While we don’t know the vetting arrangements for the suspect before he entered the US, we do know how the vetting was going to work for the plan he arrived on.

An archived government website for the OAW schemeLast updated earlier this year, it cites a “rigorous” and “multi-layered” vetting process, including the collection of fingerprints and biometric information from Afghans before they are allowed to enter the country.

It mentions several government agencies, including the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center.

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, in 2021, Dr The government has “established a robust screening and vetting architecture” under the scheme.

There have been mixed reports on the effectiveness of the program’s inspections.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted the 2022 audit – a US government watchdog – found that “certain information (such as name, date of birth, identification number and travel document data) used by US government databases to screen refugees was inaccurate, incomplete or missing”.

The OIG said the problem was partly due to DHS not having a list of Afghan refugees “who do not have sufficient identification documents.”

It also reported that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had “admitted or paroled refugees who were not fully vetted into the United States”.

After two years A second OIG audit of the plan Weaknesses were found in the government’s ability to identify potentially negative information (such as national security concerns) about some Afghan parolees.

However, earlier this year The OIG commended the FBI About the role of screening Afghans on the plan.

“Overall we found that every responsible element of the FBI effectively communicated and resolved the potential national security risk identified,” it said.

As well as reviewing the OAW’s audit, BBC Verify contacted a number of experts for their views.

Alex Norasteh, an immigration analyst at the Cato Institute think tank, said the program was “more inconsistent than usual according to OIG accounts and compared to a more intensive refugee review process”.

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

Jenny Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration advocacy group, told the BBC she had been to US military bases where refugees were initially processed.

“The evacuees were processed at military bases and held for weeks and even months until they were ready for entry into the United States. That’s when the security screening and medical screening process was carried out extensively,” she said.

“Even the best vetting cannot predict the future. He (Lucanwal) could have had a clean record, could have been a suitable candidate for humanitarian protection, and then something changed.”

Ms Murray said thousands of Afghans have safely resettled in the US in the four years since the refugee crisis, and this is the first major case.

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

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

The BBC’s Afghan service spoke to a soldier from Luckanwal’s former military unit, the Kandahar Strike Force (KSF).

The soldier said there was a check to get into the unit which took about three to four weeks and a senior KSF officer recommended and “call history check” of their mobile devices.

If the candidate passes that stage, they may be referred to a security check conducted by the US, which includes the collection of biometric data from the applicant.

The Afghan service confirmed the soldier’s account by speaking with a commander in the KSF unit, who confirmed the soldier’s identity and added that a criminal record check was also part of the vetting process.