Biden Administration Afghan Resettlement Policy Reckless

At first glance, last week’s bipartisan passage of H.R. 5305 was not particularly unusual. The bill’s stated purpose was bureaucratic in nature: to extend the funding of the federal government after the end of the fiscal year on September 30. It’s the kind of stopgap funding measure that Congress has long preferred over traditional appropriations bills. But H.R. 5305, with the support of 49 Republicans — 34 in the House, 15 in the Senate — enacted more than just the usual funding-extension resolutions for existing government programs. The legislation also included provisions pertaining to the resettlement of more than 95,000 Afghan refugees.

This is a recklessly dangerous initiative, made worse by a persistent lack of transparency — and at times, outright dishonesty — from the Biden administration. Despite the Department of Homeland Security’s assurances that Afghan refugees are “vetted to the same rigorous standards we use during normal refugee and [Special Immigrant Visa] processing,” few of the recently arrived evacuees have even been adequately vetted for security threats, and none have completed the normal refugee-processing requirements. Furthermore, conventional criminal background tests are practically useless given that the vast majority of Afghanistan’s criminal-record database is not digitized and is inaccessible to American security agencies. In essence, the president has extended an invitation to tens of thousands of unknown individuals from a notoriously terror-prone nation to come to the United States — albeit with many of them waiting in another country first — with almost no adequate screening.

About the Author

Nate Hochman

Nate Hochman was a staff writer at National Review.

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At first glance, last week’s bipartisan passage of H.R. 5305 was not particularly unusual. The bill’s stated purpose was bureaucratic in nature: to extend the funding of the federal government after the end of the fiscal year on September 30. It’s the kind of stopgap funding measure that Congress has long preferred over traditional appropriations bills. But H.R. 5305, with the support of 49 Republicans — 34 in the House, 15 in the Senate — enacted more than just the usual funding-extension resolutions for existing government programs. The legislation also included provisions pertaining to the resettlement of more than 95,000 Afghan refugees.

This is a recklessly dangerous initiative, made worse by a persistent lack of transparency — and at times, outright dishonesty — from the Biden administration. Despite the Department of Homeland Security’s assurances that Afghan refugees are “vetted to the same rigorous standards we use during normal refugee and [Special Immigrant Visa] processing,” few of the recently arrived evacuees have even been adequately vetted for security threats, and none have completed the normal refugee-processing requirements. Furthermore, conventional criminal background tests are practically useless given that the vast majority of Afghanistan’s criminal-record database is not digitized and is inaccessible to American security agencies. In essence, the president has extended an invitation to tens of thousands of unknown individuals from a notoriously terror-prone nation to come to the United States — albeit with many of them waiting in another country first — with almost no adequate screening.