Almost All 82,000 Evacuees From Kabul Admitted To US In August Unvetted - Reports

Almost All 82,000 Evacuees From Kabul Admitted to US in August Unvetted - Reports

Barely any of the over 80,000 Afghan evacuees from Kabul went through the required vetting process before entering the United States in August, the Washington Examiner newspaper reported on Thursday, citing Republican US senators

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th November, 2021) Barely any of the over 80,000 Afghan evacuees from Kabul went through the required vetting process before entering the United States in August, the Washington Examiner newspaper reported on Thursday, citing Republican US senators.

US President Joe Biden's administration ordered the military to adhere to relaxed standards when considering the documents of those evacuated from Afghanistan, according to the memo by the senators based on interviews with Federal lawmakers in contact with military bases. Therefore, American law enforcement officers only looked through the documents of arriving Afghans and searched for them in their own databases of criminals and terrorists.

However, US officials did not carry out additional background checks in most cases.

The Biden administration invented a completely new vetting procedure specifically for the Afghans clamoring to flee the country after Taliban (under UN sanctions for terrorism), a source told Washington Examiner.

About 75% of evacuated Afghans were neither US citizens, nor green card holders, nor Special Immigrant visa (SIV) for Afghans holders, nor SIV applicants, three sources familiar with the matter told the newspaper. In addition to that, many evacuees who arrived at German and Spanish bases did not have IDs on them. However, they were allowed to depart for the US, even though their bio-metrical data were not found in American databases.

Afghanistan has been under the rule of the Taliban since mid-August, when the movement entered Kabul and caused the civilian government to collapse. Many countries chose to evacuate their diplomatic missions and citizens from Afghanistan. The development also prompted mass evacuation of locals from the country for fear of reprisals from the Taliban.

As of mid-November, the US received over 40,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan including 79% SIV holders and applicants, 13% US citizens, and 8% lawful permanent residents.