How were Afghan evacuees vetted under Biden?

The shooting of two National Guard members, one of whom later died, in Washington, D.C., led to major changes in immigration policy by the Trump administration.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the suspect – from Afghanistan – entered the United States as part of an Afghan resettlement scheme launched during the Biden administration.

And Republican officials said, without providing evidence, that he failed the test.

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

The Department of Homeland Security said the suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, entered the United States through the Afghan resettlement program, Operation Allies Welcome (OAW).

The scheme was launched in August 2021 under the Biden administration to resettle “vulnerable” Afghans following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan that year.

“They came, they weren't tested, they weren't vetted,” President Trump said, calling a reporter “stupid” for asking why he blamed the Biden administration for the attack in Washington.

At an FBI press conference, agency director Kash Patel said the previous administration “made the decision to let thousands of people into this country without conducting a single background check or screening.”

And in press release on the day of the attackThe Department of Homeland Security said the suspect “is one of thousands of unvetted Afghan nationals allowed into the country under the Biden administration's Operation Allies Welcome program.”

This week on X, Vice President J.D. Vance recalled comments he made in 2021. “criticizing Biden's policy of opening the floodgates to unvetted Afghan refugees.”

He made similar comments about failed checks in an interview with CBS earlier this year. Vance highlighted the case of an Afghan citizen who was also evacuated to the United States after the Taliban came to power. who was later charged with terrorism-related offenses.

Lakanwal entered the US through OAW on September 8, 2021, shortly after the fall of Kabul.

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

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

Most Afghan nationals who arrived under the OAW program were allowed to remain in the country for two years under a process known as “early release.”

Afghans on parole are required to comply with reporting requirements (such as medical examinations and important vaccinations) and may lose the right to remain in the US if these requirements are not met.

Those who took “significant risks” to support US troops in Afghanistan were accepted as legal permanent residents after going through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) process.

According to the charity AfghanEvac, Lakanwal filed an active SIV claim but was granted asylum this year under the current Trump administration.

We've reached out to the White House for more details on Lakanwala's review. He did not provide them, but told us:

“This animal would never have been here if not for Joe Biden's dangerous policies that have allowed countless untested criminals to invade our country and harm the American people.

“The Trump administration is taking every action possible—in the face of unrelenting Democratic opposition—to drive these monsters out of our country and clean up the mess the Biden administration has created.”

We also contacted DHS and the CIA, but they did not respond.

While we do not know how the suspect was screened prior to his entry into the United States, we do know how the screening was supposed to work in the manner in which he arrived.

Archive of the government OAW scheme website.last updated earlier this year, mentions a “rigorous” and “multi-layered” vetting process that includes collecting biometric information such as fingerprints and photographs from Afghans before they are allowed into the country.

It names numerous government agencies involved in the review, including the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center.

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stated in 2021: that the government has “established a robust review and verification architecture” under the scheme.

There have been mixed reviews about the program's testing effectiveness.

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

The OIG said the problem arose in part because DHS did not have a list of Afghan evacuees “who did not have sufficient identification documents.”

It also reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “accepted or paroled evacuees who were not fully screened in the United States.”

Two years later another check of the OIG scheme found weaknesses in the government's ability to identify potentially negative information (such as national security concerns) about some Afghan parolees.

However, earlier this year OIG praises FBI for his role in vetting Afghans for the scheme.

“Overall, we found that each of the responsible FBI officials effectively communicated and addressed any potential national security risks identified,” the report said.

As well as reviewing the OAW audit, BBC Verify contacted several experts to get their views on the audit process.

Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration analyst at the Cato Institute think tank, said the program “was more inconsistent than usual in OIG reporting and compared to the more intensive refugee status review process.”

“Due to the chaotic nature of the evacuation, information was lost and some checks were not carried out until the migrants had already left Afghanistan.”

Jenny Murray, president and CEO of immigration advocacy group the National Immigration Forum, told BBC Verify she was present at US military bases where evacuees were initially processed.

“Evacuees were processed at military bases and held for weeks and even months until they were ready to enter the United States. That’s when the security check and medical examination were thoroughly carried out,” she said.

“Even the best test cannot predict the future. [Lakanwal] could have had a clean record, been a suitable candidate for humanitarian protection, and then something changed.”

In the four years since the evacuation, thousands of Afghans have resettled safely in the United States, the first major incident, Ms. Murray said.

“Just because one person did a terrible thing doesn't mean other Afghans are now a threat,” she added.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe told CBS News, the BBC's US affiliate, that the suspect was working with the CIA in Afghanistan.

BBC Afghanistan spoke to a soldier from Lakanwala's former military unit, the Kandahar Strike Force (KSF).

The soldier said that to join the unit, there was a screening process that took about three to four weeks and involved getting a recommendation from a senior KSF officer and conducting a “call history check” on their mobile device.

If the applicant passed this stage, they could be referred to a US-administered security screening, which included the collection of the applicant's biometric data.

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