55 Afghan refugees flagged on terror watchlist before or during resettlement in US: watchdog

The Department of Justice Inspector General confirmed that 55 Afghan refugees accepted under the Biden administration were flagged on the terror watchlist before or during their resettlement in the United States. 

The report confirmed longstanding concerns by Republicans in Congress that the Biden administration failed to properly vet the refugees fleeing Taliban rule in the midst of the disastrous U.S. withdrawal and collapse of the American-backed central government. 

“I’ve sounded the alarm about the need to thoroughly vet Afghan evacuee applicants since August 2021. The Biden-Harris administration, my Democrat colleagues in Congress and many in the media were quick to dismiss glaring red flags that a nonpartisan national security analysis now confirms,” Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a press release. “As if it wasn’t already obvious, the Biden-Harris administration endangered American lives by allowing suspected terrorists to enter the United States and roam free for years.”

Senator Grassley vowed his oversight of the Biden administration’s vetting and resettlement of Afghan refugees would continue. 

The report found that as of May 2023, nearly two years after the Afghanistan withdrawal, the Terrorism Screening Center identified 55 Afghan refugees who were “either already on the terrorist watchlist but still made it to a U.S. port of entry as part of the evacuation or were added to the watchlist during the evacuation and resettlement in the United States.” 

While many were eventually removed from the watchlist after they were deemed to be no threat, as of July 2024, nine of the individuals remained on the watchlist and were still being tracked by federal law enforcement. 

You can read the findings below: 

An earlier assessment in February 2022 by the Pentagon’s inspector general came to a similar conclusion. It found that the Biden administration failed to use all available screening data to vet Afghan refugees brought to the United States in the wake of the withdrawal, allowing at least 50 individuals posing "potentially significant security concerns" to make it inside America's border, Just the News reported. 

Senators, including Grassley, Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and James Inhofe, R-Okla., raised concerns that the Biden administration had not fixed the deficiencies in the vetting process following the Pentagon inspector general’s report, noting the failure marked a “serious breach of homeland security.” 

At least one Afghan refugee plotted an Election Day terrorist attack before his plans were thwarted by the FBI, which arrested him just one month before the 2024 presidential election. Just the News reported that Tawhedi was granted special parole permission to enter the country during Operation Allies Refuge following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a senior U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity. The unsealed criminal complaint confirms that Tawhedi was granted a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV).