On Wednesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “The Record,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) discussed the testimony of Sam Aronson, a State Department official during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, who said that consulates “did not send their best. In fact, they may have sent their worst” to Afghanistan and one of the officials at the consulate was overweight and another was deaf. Perry also noted that Aronson testified that there was terrible vetting to determine who actually had a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) and what “was supposed to be the sole mechanism with which to confirm someone had an SIV…became the least reliable mechanism to confirm that somebody had an approved SIV” and stated, “some people were left behind. Other people who were undeserving, unvetted came to America.”
Perry said, “You talked about who was staffed at the consular level, … one person was overweight and could not bear the weight of the body armor and do their job. Another person, literally, — Greta, this a combat zone — is deaf. If you can’t hear gunfire or hear explosions, how can you hear — or how can you be safe? And how can you safeguard the individuals in your care? But as concerning as that is — what’s really concerning to me is the fact that, in the testimony, we see that the State Department was handing out SIVs, Special Immigrant Visas, to people that were not vetted to receive them. So, essentially, there was no barcode, there was no PIN, there was no identification attached to the person receiving the visa, coming to the United States of America. So, some people were left behind. Other people who were undeserving, unvetted came to America.”
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