OPINION:
Of the 200,000 Afghans brought here under programs hastily arranged by the Biden administration, there are hundreds who should be deported. As I recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee, some have criminal or terrorist records that make them inadmissible under our immigration law. Some of them will inevitably victimize Americans or other immigrants in the future.
The U.S. involvement in Afghanistan lasted about 20 years: from our first casualty, CIA officer Johnny Micheal Spann in November 2001, to the final terrorist attack by ISIS-K at Kabul Airport that killed 13 Americans. Through no fault of the many brave and dutiful Americans who served there, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan did not achieve its desired objective.
The end was ignominious. The Afghan government we had paid billions to prop up fell like a house of cards. Our exit was rushed and chaotic. We brought home our dead and wounded, but we left billions in equipment, and supplies for the Taliban.
The U.S. had other options. We could have helped to support a safe zone in Afghanistan itself. The country has often had regions run by regional rulers who oppose the central government. Or, instead of paying billions to bring Afghans to an alien country far from home, we could have paid neighboring countries — Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, or even India — to take them in. These places have more in common with the Afghan culture, religion, and way of life than any Western country.
Even if one accepts the premise that those Afghans who had given exceptional service to America should be brought here, the levels of service, and hence the risk, vary greatly between individuals.
Yet that distinction seemed to play little part in our mass evacuation effort. We didn’t just bring out a few thousand exceptional Afghans for whom their American comrades personally vouched. We evacuated people who happened to make it to the airport at the right time or were lucky enough to get out of the country. We accepted them based on unsubstantiated claims and unproven family relationships.
When Americans think of “Afghan allies,” they think of guides, soldiers, translators, and others who risked their lives beside our forces in the field or in crucial national security, combat, and intelligence roles. They are not thinking of laborers working for subcontractors, or for foreign media organizations or NGOs.
As Afghanistan combat veteran Joe Kent said on X, “vetting a foreigner in a war zone to determine if he will fight a common enemy is vastly different than vetting a foreigner to see if he is suitable to live in our country.”
As Marine combat veteran Wade Miller said, separating true friends from other categories of Afghans is not simple. “Many played both sides. Many only did it to make money. Many were plants. Many had long-standing tribal grudges against the Taliban,” he noted.
Our efforts to extract a theoretically limited number of Afghan “allies” using parole, Special Immigrant Visas, or as refugees were poorly targeted and feckless.
The Biden administration’s efforts to bring in as many Afghans as possible, as quickly as possible, resulted in standards being dropped far below the level plausible to prevent dangerous, unstable, or undesirable individuals from entering the United States.
Afghans brought to the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome, and its successor programs, have been arrested for crimes including property damage, sexual assault, plotting terrorist attacks, and murder.
At present, the U.S. has no means to vet anyone inside Afghanistan. We have no diplomatic or overt security presence in the country.
Even the best vetting can only find information that is available. The saying in computing goes: “garbage in, garbage out.” For vetting, the corollary would be “nothing in, nothing out.” Any record applicable to a given Afghan but which is unavailable to U.S. agencies does not count as derogatory information.
Even successful vetting cannot predict future radicalization or action. Admitting foreign nationals, however well screened, has inherent risk.
To mitigate that risk, DHS should review the files of every Afghan admitted since 2021 to verify that the applicant provided real service to the United States, that their family relationships are genuine, and that they have no criminal or other ineligibilities before allowing them to become permanent residents or citizens.
Going forward, our protection efforts for remaining Afghan “allies” should concentrate on finding nearby countries where they can be placed more easily, cheaply, and safely than bringing them to the United States.
• Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, and author of “The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey).”
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