Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is hailing President Joe Biden’s “historic” resettlement operation that brought more than 115,000 Afghans to the United States on its two-year anniversary.
Following the U.S. Armed Forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Biden opened a refugee pipeline that has resettled Afghans, most without visas, across all 50 states in less than a year.
Many of those Afghans arrived without having been interviewed in person beforehand, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified to Congress.
WATCH — Sec. Blinken: Most Afghans Not Vetted Before Getting on Planes
US Senate Committee on Foreign RelationsOn its two-year anniversary, Mayorkas called the resettlement operation a “historic effort” that has made the U.S. “stronger” because the Afghans “enrich the cultural fabric of our society.”
“Two years ago, President Biden directed the Department of Homeland Security to lead Operation Allies Welcome, the historic effort to provide refuge to Afghan nationals, including those who stood alongside us in Afghanistan for two decades,” Mayorkas said in a statement.
“The Afghan newcomers contribute to our economy, support their families, and enrich the cultural fabric of our society,” he continued. “Our Department’s workforce, supported by welcoming American communities and the American people, met the mission of this unprecedented moment.”
The resettlement operation, though, has been plagued with reported vetting failures since its inception when Afghans first started arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia in 2021.
In April, a former Department of Defense (DOD) official revealed to Congress that some Afghans were resettled in the U.S. before they were found to have been involved in placing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan to kill American troops.
In 2021, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) requested information about the number of Afghans who sought entry to the U.S. who were listed on the federal government’s “No Fly List” because of their ties to Islamic terrorism. Biden’s top agency officials have refused to disclose the total.
In September 2022, the DHS Inspector General (IG) issued a bombshell report detailing how the Biden administration brought Afghans to the U.S. who were “not fully vetted” and could “pose a risk to national security.”
WATCH: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Admits Failure to Check Afghan Migrants
C-SPANSimilarly, in February 2022, a DOD IG report revealed that Biden’s agencies failed to properly vet Afghans arriving in the U.S. and that about 50 Afghans were flagged for “significant security concerns” after their resettlement.
Most of the unvetted Afghans flagged for possible terrorism ties, the DOD IG report states, have since disappeared into American communities. The report noted that as of September 17, 2021, only three of 31 Afghans flagged with specific “derogatory information” could be located.
Independent whistleblower reports have come to the same conclusions.
In August 2022, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) detailed allegations from a whistleblower who claimed that the Biden administration knowingly resettled almost 400 Afghans in the U.S. who were listed as “potential threats” in federal databases and urged staff to cut corners in the vetting process.
In May 2022, a Project Veritas report alleged that the Biden administration resettled Afghans listed on the federal government’s “Terrorism Watch List” in American communities:
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
