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Biden officials are importing unvetted migrants from Afghanistan into the United States, with these arrivals likely to receive work permits and even U.S. citizenship, according to former officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
A State Department official speaking to Reuters on August 23 acknowledged the flow of unvetted Afghan migrants.
“Today the first onward flight of SIV applicants took off from Germany to the United States and we expect those to continue to ramp up,” the official said, referring to the Special Immigrant Visa, which is designed for people who worked with the U.S. military.
The same official dismissed reports that only Americans were able to get through the Kabul airport and that others have been blocked.
Major General Hank Taylor at the Pentagon told journalists on August 21 that “Intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals are conducting screening and security vetting for all SIV applicants and other vulnerable Afghans before they are allowed into the U.S.”
Taylor did not say that vetting would be completed before allowing migrants to enter the country.
Ken Cuccinelli, who served as deputy chief of homeland security under President Trump, said it is very difficult for U.S. troops in Afghanistan to vet Afghanis who claim to have fought alongside American troops or to have worked for U.S. projects.
“It is brutally difficult to get that done with any reliability.… It is impossible when you no longer have a presence in the area,” Cuccinelli said.
“If [the vetting] is going to happen, it has to happen in these third countries before they get to the United States,” he asserted, adding, “It is not clear that we’re going to be able to vet those people before a decision is made whether to bring them over or not, and that kicks over to the question of how much risk are we willing to absorb in those decisions where we don’t have the ability to prove key elements like confirming identity?”
Cucinelli also warned that migrants are intelligent and capable of committing fraud. Even though the Left treats “them as if they’re these stupid people barely able to stay alive … they’re quite smart just like most other people.”
Rob Law, director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, predicted that even if migrants subsequently fail the vetting process, they will not be deported after they have been brought into the United States.
“Are you really going to deport the Afghanis back to Afghanistan? No. What are you going to do? Send them to another country? No, you’re just going to cut them loose and probably going to cut them loose with a work permit,” he said.
Law, who served as a senior official in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under Trump, maintained that, for the Left, the aim is to bring Afghan “refugees” into America and then invent programs to keep them in the country permanently and hand them government benefits.
A few of them actually qualify for SIVs [Special Immigrant Visas for translators], but most of them do not. [Once they are in the U.S.], then all of a sudden, [progressives] will say, “Well, here’s a [legalization] program that we’ll make up of out of thin air and in violation of the law.” Or, once you have a large enough population here, then all of a sudden, [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas slaps Afghanistan with the TPS [Temporary Protected Status] designation, and then they’re here forever.
Cucinelli agreed with the sentiment, adding that there are political and monetary motivations behind the refugee push:
There are political motivations behind it. If you’re the political party that helps make this happen, then there’s kind of this wink and a nod as to how these people or their subsequent offspring or other family members will vote in subsequent elections.
Businesses have new consumers, and they also have a new cheaper source of labor to employ, to further keep their costs down, and for the [investors] of the world to further maximize their profit margins.
Cucinelli encouraged state legal officials to sue the Biden government, arguing that America’s laws are generally protective of American workers.
According to a recent survey by Rasmussen, a majority of Americans oppose the resettlement of the expected 50,000-plus refugees Biden has signaled he wants to bring into the United States.