At least nine Republican senators demand answers from DHS on Afghan refugee vetting

[Elderberry]

By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square contributor 12/23/2021

At least nine Republican senators demand answers from DHS on Afghan refugee vetting

At least nine Republican U.S. senators are continuing to pressure the Department of Homeland Security for answers over its vetting process of Afghan evacuees entering the U.S.

Three Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members sent a letter last week to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting information about Afghan evacuees. This week, six additional senators sent a letter to DHS asking for an overdue report they were supposed to have received Nov. 30.

Their letters followed news reports that the State Department didn’t have reliable data on everyone who evacuated Afghanistan and what types of visas they qualified for, and after a convicted rapist on an evacuation flight reached Washington-Dulles Airport. The letters also were sent after assaults and arrests were reported at military bases in New Mexico and Wisconsin where evacuees were being housed, and after several of the senators expressed concerns at a senate committee hearing in September.

Senators Ron Johnson (Wis.), Rick Scott (Fla.), and Josh Hawley (Mo.), sent a letter Dec. 17 to the secretaries following up to a September senate hearing they held on the Biden administration’s controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan. Blinken had testified that “most of [the evacuees] were not” vetted before they were evacuated.

Blinken’s admission contradicts claims made by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. In an August 24 press briefing, Psaki according to media reports said, “we have a stringent vetting process which includes background checks before any individual comes to the United States … we take the vetting of any individual who comes to the United States and comes out incredibly seriously, and it’s an extensive process.”

She added those being evacuated were first brought to the “lily pad countries” of Bahrain, Qatar and Germany, “either because they’ve only proceeded through certain steps of this – of the immigrant visa process, or because their vetting process has not yet been completed.”

More: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/at-least-nine-republican-senators-demand-answers-from-dhs-on-afghan-refugee-vetting/article_bf0d118c-63ee-11ec-a5c1-ef465eb3dc82.html

[Killer Clouds]

The republicant senators were basically told to piss off and nothing will be done. The US doesn't have enough terrorists here already so the need to import more.

[libertybele]

This issue is more than concerning and the senators are absolutely correct, how are they vetting them without the documentation needed? Even if they have documents, how are those documents verified??   I am angered that the U.S. gov't evacuated more Afghans then Americans.  (Separate entities tried to evacuate more Americans only to be denied to leave by the State Dept).

''The senators told the secretaries that they were “still concerned about your agencies’ ability to fully vet these individuals if they do not have any identification documents and cannot prove who they claim to be.”


More than 120,000 individuals were airlifted out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31. The U.S. government reportedly evacuated 80,000 people, of whom 5,500 were Americans and over 73,000 were Afghans or other foreign nationals. Roughly 44,000 of them are currently not living on U.S. military bases but are living in the general U.S. population; less than 29,000 are being housed at bases in the U.S., Politico reported.