The Biden Administration’s anti-border policies have created an unprecedented crisis at the U.S. southern border, and terrorists are noticing.
Last month, an explosive report from the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Inspector General (IG) found that Biden’s administration has been importing large numbers of Afghan refugees who have not been vetted. The IG report found that many of these refugees have “significant security concerns,” but that DOD personnel cannot locate them. This damning report went mostly uncovered in the corporate media, but it did catch the attention of some lawmakers, including Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.
“Joe Biden promised to vet the evacuees that came to America after his retreat from Afghanistan,” Cotton said. “But he didn’t, and now American lives are at risk. According to this report, dozens of suspected bomb-makers and terrorists arrived in our country — and now some have gone missing.”
Cotton is right. During the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, Biden emphatically defended his administration’s vetting processes, vowing that Afghan refugees would be allowed into the U.S. only after having been thoroughly vetted. More than six months later, it’s fair to say that Biden hasn’t lived up to that promise. It’s clear at this point that a significant number of Afghan refugees are being admitted into the country without being thoroughly vetted. In fact, the top priority of the Biden administration on this issue is apparently to import as many Afghan refugees as possible regardless of the consequences to the American people and U.S. national security.
The White House developed a plan late last month to fast track Afghan refugees into the U.S., according to a report from Axios. The administration’s plan would reportedly expedite the vetting process to allow Afghan refugees to be approved within 30 days of arriving at a U.S. military base in Qatar, where many refugees are being held.
This bypasses standard vetting processes, which typically take years to complete. While Americans feel compassion for Afghan refugees, and should support the admission of some refugees who aided the U.S. war effort for two decades, it is extremely unwise to admit large numbers of refugees from such a dangerous part of the world without extreme vetting.
Many of the Afghan refugees applying for admission into the U.S. are likely to hold extreme views that are out of step with American values. According to a 2013 Pew Research study, 99 percent of Afghan Muslims support sharia law, and 61 percent believe that all citizens should be subject to sharia law. Of the Afghan Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land, 81 percent support hudud punishments, including amputation of limbs and flogging for crimes such as theft and robbery.
There have also been warnings from DHS that older Afghan men have been bringing their child brides into the U.S. The Biden Administration has an obligation to ensure that when they import Afghan refugees to the U.S., they are not also importing the kind of radicalism and penchant for violence found in that part of the world.
In addition to the Biden White House’negligence when it comes to vetting Afghan refugees, its anti-border policies have created an opening for terrorists at our southern border. Late last year, border patrol apprehended a Saudi man at the Arizona border, who they feared was a “potential terrorist.”
DHS also recently released a Venezuelan citizen from Lebanon into the country despite suspected ties to terrorists. DHS reportedly released the man and his family into the country because he was overweight, and therefore was at high risk for a COVID-19 infection. This explanation did not satisfy the nine Republicans on the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, who demanded that the House Judiciary Committee hold hearings on the terror threat at the border.
While many people are focused on a potential war in Europe, the most immediate risk to U.S. national security remains our porous border. The terror threat emanating from our broken immigration system is more real than ever, increasingl thanks to Biden’s disastrous policies.
William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.