The Atlanta area is among a list of 19 U.S. cities where the U.S. State Department says it will resettle untold thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military as translators or interpreters in Afghanistan. That announcement came via Facebook from U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. He wants Georgians to welcome their “Afghan brothers and sisters with open arms and hearts.”
But critics like Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, warn that “the evacuation from Kabul was so haphazard and rushed that many, perhaps most, of those extracted were not previously screened people.”
As this is written it is unclear where resettlements would take place in metro Atlanta, although refugee organizations like the Marietta-based MUST Ministries are clamoring to assist with the resettlement of Afghans and providing basics like affordable housing, food and clothing.
Krikorian notes that “confusion surrounds the manner and timing of vetting that the Afghans undergo who are being flown to the United States and the potential national security risks Americans are being asked to tolerate.” He writes in a National Review article that it is irrelevant whether the Afghans evacuated from Kabul are being vetted in third countries, often while held at American bases, before being let into the U.S.
According to Krikorian, “Vetting is only as good as the information you have to vet people against. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) told the Washington Times that of the 2,000 Afghans housed at a base in his state, not one had the Special Immigrant Visa for Afghans employed by, or on behalf of, the U.S. government. So, how to screen those Afghans who’ve never been screened? Given Afghanistan’s low level of development, it’s not like the record-keeping there was ever comprehensive and efficient, if it existed at all.”
Warnock does not address what Krikorian emphasizes is a huge security dilemma: Regardless of what incriminating information is discovered during vetting or how large a security threat the evacuee presents, the individual cannot be deported to Afghanistan or released in the countries in which they are being temporarily held. They will have to be resettled in the U.S.
Krikorian concludes, “The whole notion of holding Afghans offshore until they’re vetted is a charade. Those who don’t have a Special Immigrant Visa are simply being “paroled” into the U.S. Immigration parole is a work-around whereby the executive can temporarily let in visa-less foreigners for humanitarian reasons. But like so much else in our dishonest immigration system, ‘temporary’ in this case means permanent. Every Afghan we extracted from Kabul will be able to live here for the rest of his life, even if the Afghan refugee commits crimes after his arrival.”
