(Daily Signal)—America failed to establish a democracy in Afghanistan and then failed to properly vet many of the 200,000 Afghans taken into the U.S. after the fall of Kabul in 2021, according to Simon Hankinson.
After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban under President Joe Biden, the U.S. scrambled to evacuate nationals who had served the U.S. government and military. What ensued was an “Afghan vetting fiasco,” says Hankinson, who served as a Foreign Service Officer for over 20 years.
“I don’t know who made the decision and how, but when we were flying people out of Afghanistan, we were not flying people who … had [Special Immigrant Visas] only,” Hankinson, currently a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.
“We were not flying people who were confirmed Afghan allies,” he continued. “We were flying everybody who showed up to the airport, and could somehow, you know, bluff their way onto a plane. So, the default seemed to be, well, bring them and we’ll figure it out later.”
Hankinson was scheduled to testify before members of Congress on Tuesday on the issue of Afghan nationals being paroled into the U.S., but the hearing was postponed until 2026.
Before 2021, Special Immigrant Visas were reserved for people who had served the U.S. government in a foreign country in an outstanding way for 20 years, and in some rare cases, for just 15 years. There is usually a long progress of vetting and levels of recommendation for a foreigner to receive a Special Immigrant Visa, but in the case of Afghanistan, visas were fast-tracked initially to Afghans who had only served the U.S. government for a year, and then later for two years, Hankinson explained.
But there was not time to give every Afghan who had helped the U.S. a Special Immigrant Visa, so many were simply paroled into the U.S. and given all the benefits of a refugee, such as a driver’s license and work permit.
Missing Data
While the U.S. did conduct vetting of the Afghans paroled into the U.S., “vetting is only as good as the data that you have,” Hankinson said.
Because some Afghans are illiterate and don’t know the date of birth, it is impossible to find their records without actuate biographical information.
For example, he explained, among the 200,000 Afghans who have come to the U.S. since the fall of Kabul, 10,000 list their birthday as Jan. 1.
“Whoever is doing the typing is in a hurry and puts in ‘Jan. 1,’ [and] some may only have one name,” Hankinson said. Furthermore, some crimes, such as certain sex crimes, are not considered crimes at all in Afghanistan, and the Taliban, of course, is not a government the U.S. can work with to confirm an individual’s criminal record or lack thereof.
Afghans who had worked for the U.S. military or the CIA in Afghanistan were vetted more thoroughly, and a background check with the Afghan authority would have likely been completed, which is “about as good as you can get,” he said. Yet even this higher level of vetting is not perfect.
While most of the 200,000 Afghans who came to the U.S. under the Biden administration “are probably not criminals,” Hankinson said, “among those, I absolutely guarantee you that there are child molesters, there are rapists, there are thieves, there are people who work for the Taliban, and there are terrorists.”
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan man and suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in D.C. in November, worked under CIA direction in Afghanistan and would have undergone thorough vetting.
Lakanwal, like thousands of other Afghans, entered the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome.
What Now?
Since the tragic shooting that left National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom dead and National Guard member Andrew Wolfe seriously injured, President Donald Trump has paused the issuance of visas for Afghan nationals.
Moving ahead, Hankinson says there needs to be more information sharing within the U.S. government since it was found that the Department of War had information on Afghan nationals that it had not turned over to the Department of Homeland Security.
Among the 200,000 Afghans, those “who were not allies, who just got out by accident, and, of course, the terrorists and the criminals” need to be deported, he said.
Hankinson argues the U.S. government should have paid another country, such as Tajikistan, to receive Afghan nationals fleeing the Taliban since there were likely only about 10,000 Afghans who served the U.S. government in such a way that put their lives at risk with the Taliban, he estimates. But since that was not done initially, Hankinson says “solutions closer to Afghanistan” should be found for additional Afghans currently living in refugee camps and who are in fear of returning to Afghanistan.
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