GOP lawmakers long warned of security risks of Biden-era Afghan resettlement program used by alleged National Guard shooter
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29‑year‑old Afghan who is believed to have fired at two National Guard troops on Wednesday in Washington, DC, entered the United States through a Biden‑era resettlement initiative. The program, known as Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) and its sibling Operation Allies Refuge (OAR), accepted almost 90,000 Afghans during 2021 and gave them a window to be processed and settled.
Lakanwal arrived in September 2021, just as the U.S. was winding down its presence in Afghanistan, and was later resettled in Bellingham, Washington, according to police sources. Most of those evacuees—roughly 73,500—were granted a two‑year parole, with a handful receiving a further extension that allowed them to stay, work, and live legally in the country. About 16,500 of the newcomers were admitted under Special Immigrant Visas or other types of temporary status.
Already from the outset, many Republicans warned that the vetting process for these refugees was thin. Sen. Joni Ernst (R‑IA) sent a letter to former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in October 2021, arguing that the security checks were “hastily developed” and “insufficient to preserve the safety of the American homeland.” She cautioned that the administration could’t afford to release a possible terrorist into the United States.
President Trump dubbed Lakanwal’s attack “an act of terror.” He has since announced an immediate halt on all immigration requests involving Afghan nationals while the agency reviews its vetting procedures.
The DOJ’s Inspector General released a June report finding that at least 55 of Biden’s Afghan evacuees were on a terrorism watch list. Of those, 46 were eventually cleared of any threat, but nine remained on the database, with eight still residing in the U.S. One of the nine is still under suspicion, but it’s unclear whether the Washington shooter appeared on any list.
In October 2024, the Justice Department charged Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi—who entered the United States on September 9, 2021 and lived in Oklahoma City on a Special Immigrant Visa—with planning an ISIS‑inspired attack. He allegedly stockpiled AK‑47 rifles and ammunition for a potential assault on U.S. soil “in the name of ISIS,” the DOJ said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R‑IA) has repeatedly called out the Biden administration for its “failure to vet Afghan evacuees.” In a statement in October, he said he’d raised concerns since August 2021 and accused the administration of “allowing suspected terrorists to enter the country and roam free for years.” In July, he claimed that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had informed him that about 1,600 Afghan evacuees had links to terrorism or other questionable data as of August 2022.
The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center logged 55 Afghans who appeared on its watch list either before they entered the U.S. or during the resettlement process. Those records indicated that the nation’s usual risk‑assessment mechanisms were rushed by the urgency of evacuation, potentially leaving room for bad actors to slip through. The Department of Homeland Security said its “multi‑layered review”—performed by intelligence, law‑enforcement, and counter‑terrorism experts—examined evacuees’ biographical and biometric data against U.S. government holdings to flag potential threats.
Under President Trump, DHS reportedly handled parole extension requests from Afghan nationals on a “case‑by‑case” basis. The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for Afghan migrants, which offered temporary protection from deportation, was terminated by the Trump administration in July.
Following the shooting in Washington, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that all Afghan‑national immigration requests would be paused indefinitely pending a review of the vetting process. “The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission,” the agency tweeted.
President Trump said he would “re‑examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden” and take “all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here.” He summed up the attack by calling the nation’s biggest national‑security threat the influx of “20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners…” and added, “If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them.”
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