The Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome program that allowed Afghans to enter the
US, including the alleged National Guardsmen shooter, was riddled with inaccuracies — and failed to monitor the refugees properly once they were here, a federal report found.
The flaws in the program, which Biden pushed through in 2021, were identified in a Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report published last year.
The review found that the systems in place to document the arrivals of the incoming Afghans was plagued by data inaccuracies and glitches that would have made it difficult for immigration officials to pinpoint “biographic or criminal history data.”
US — including the alleged National Guardsmen shooter. U.S. Air Forces Europe-Africa via Getty Images
In some cases, Afghans were assigned multiple identification numbers or their names were spelled incorrectly.
“[Immigration] personnel must have accurate information on individuals to ensure the integrity of the adjudication and enforcement processes,” the report found.
“Data errors may negatively impact USCIS and ICE staff’s ability to identify individuals quickly and accurately within the OAW population and appropriately connect individuals with accurate information such as biographic or criminal history data.”
Once the Afghans were in the US, the report found there was no process in place to rigorously monitor when their parole dates were up.
“We found DHS does not have a process to monitor parole expiration for individual OAW parolees and has not designated a component to monitor their parole expiration. CBP, USCIS, and ICE officials uniformly believed this was not their responsibility,” the report stated.
It comes after the feds confirmed Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, DC on Wednesday, had come to the US under the program.
Lakanwal, for his part, applied for asylum in December last year and was ultimately approved in April, a Trump administration official confirmed.
The 29-year-old, who resided in Washington state, had no known criminal history, the official added.
The Biden-era program was put in place in a bid to resettle thousands of Afghans who assisted the US during the Afghanistan war and feared reprisals from Taliban forces who seized control of country after American troops withdrew.
The program allowed roughly 90,000 Afghans to become eligible for Special Immigration Visas and provided the foreign nationals with immigration processing and resettlement support.
In the wake of the shooting, President Trump said his administration would “re-examine” all Afghans who came to the US during Joe Biden’s presidency.
