NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
After the tragic Wednesday shooting of two West Virginia National Guardsmen in Washington, renewed scrutiny is falling on the vetting process for Afghan evacuees.
The identification of a suspect has resurfaced concerns surrounding the chaotic 2021 Kabul evacuation and previous reports of misconduct by evacuees on U.S. military bases.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, originally of Afghanistan and once part of a CIA-linked team fighting the Taliban, was identified as the main suspect in the shooting, which has since claimed the life of West Virginia National Guard member Spc. Sarah Beckstrom of Nicholas County, West Virginia.
On Friday, “Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham told Fox News Digital that she and other conservatives have been sounding the alarm on failures of Biden-era vetting following the withdrawal — ever since the Fox News host exclusively broke the story in September 2021 that members of Congress brought concerns over chaos at Army bases holding refugees directly to the State Department.
TRUMP ORDER PUTS THOUSANDS OF AFGHAN ALLIES WAITING FOR US RESETTLEMENT IN LIMBO
“Soon after the Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal, it was obvious that their intent was to bring as many Afghans into the U.S. as possible,” Ingraham wrote in a Friday email.
“Conservatives including myself raised serious concerns about the cost, the difficulty of assimilation, and potential threats posed to no avail,” she said. “The Biden team didn’t care.”
“We kept hearing — ‘But we promised….’ — Americans didn’t promise anything—and they shouldn’t be forced to keep paying for previous presidents’ horrendous mistakes.”
In September 2021, Ingraham exclusively reported that a top Republican demanded answers from then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the reports out of Fort Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia, depicting chaos and unvetted, unaccounted for evacuees.
“I’ve recently been made aware from someone at Fort Pickett, Virginia, that Afghan evacuees basically have free rein of the complex and have even been allowed to leave, despite not having completed the vetting process,” then-Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee wrote in a letter he first shared with Ingraham.
VETERANS GROUPS URGE TRUMP ADMIN TO CONTINUE AFGHAN ALLY SUPPORT PROGRAM AMID BUDGET CUT CONCERNS
“My sources made shocking allegations, including multiple incidents of sexual assault and several evacuees have been picked up by Uber drivers without any permission from authorities or being cleared to leave.”
Green called upon his own combat service in Afghanistan as an Army special operations flight surgeon to request confirmation or denial of the allegations made by the source, telling Blinken the reports pose an obvious national security risk.
At the time, Ingraham contrasted Green’s letter with Blinken’s public statements. During a press conference at the time, Blinken said that in the administration’s effort to get “as many people out (of Afghanistan) as fast as we can, while we had the (Hamid Karzai) Airport functioning, we focused on doing just that.”
DEMS’ RESPONSE TO ISIS LEADER ARREST ‘DISTURBING,’ SAYS FATHER OF MARINE KILLED AT ABBEY GATE
“We’re doing accountings on the back end as people arrive in the United States,” Blinken told reporters at the time.
“If you thought they would be securely held on U.S. military bases, think again,” Ingraham said of Green’s revelation.
DOZENS OF HOUSE LAWMAKERS RALLY AROUND FUNDING AFGHAN VISA PROGRAM AS TRUMP VOWS MAJOR SPENDING CUTS
Ingraham added Friday in comments to Fox News Digital that Afghan evacuees from Biden’s withdrawal not only come from a culture hostile to Western values, but are often “all too dependent on the U.S. taxpayers to support them and their families.”
“This must end — (it’s) yet another calamitous Biden mistake President Trump is forced to address,” she said.
In his discussion with Ingraham after the withdrawal, Green, a member of and later chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee who left public life earlier in 2025, said he was hearing similar reports from bases beyond Fort Pickett, Virginia.
NAVAL OFFICER SENTENCED IN AFGHAN SIV BRIBERY SCHEME AMID SCRUTINY OF VISA PROGRAM AFTER TERROR PLOT EXPOSED
“DOD is getting its directions on how to handle these situations by the State Department,” Green claimed. “And the State Department is failing to give them adequate information. They’re letting them leave. They can catch an Uber and actually leave the base. They don’t know exactly how many are even there.”
“So they can’t account for someone if they don’t return.”
Green said officials warned evacuees that if they leave the base their visa processing would stop, but that such a warning appeared to have little effect on those who may have left.
JD VANCE CLASHES WITH CBS ANCHOR OVER UNVETTED REFUGEES: ‘I DON’T WANT THAT PERSON IN MY COUNTRY’
“Then you get the shocking allegations of harassment and sexual assault, and it’s just horrific.”
At the time, Ingraham reported many of the evacuees on the planes out of Kabul came with no personal documentation at all, and questioned how any “vetting” could be done of people who couldn’t begin to prove their own identity.
When contacted by Fox News at the time, the Biden State Department said, as a general matter, it did not comment on communications with Congress.
HEGSETH ORDERS PENTAGON TO LAUNCH COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW INTO ‘CATASTROPHIC’ 2021 AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
Then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CBS News at the time that the administration was dealing with “very few” evacuees who had given “any cause for concern.”
CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell followed up by pressing the secretary whether he could guarantee none of “thousands” of prisoners released by the Taliban would be coming to America.
“I can guarantee you that we are doing everything possible to make sure that they don’t,” Mayorkas said.
FOUR YEARS AFTER ABBEY GATE, VETERANS WHO SAVED CIVILIANS DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY
By one year after the Afghanistan withdrawal, lawmakers were still focusing on fallout from the apparent chaos.
Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., said on Fox News in September 2022 that he had heard similar reports out of Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, in his home state as Green had out of Virginia.
“Should it be any surprise to the American people that they were misled? This is no different than the Southern border when Secretary Mayorkas came before the (House) Judiciary Committee and lied to us and said the border is secure. A year ago, President Biden said ‘inflation is transitory’. And now, a year later, we find out that they did not vet them,” Tiffany said.
HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE SAYS ‘NATIONAL SECURITY BLUNDERS’ OF PAST 4 YEARS HAVE EMBOLDENED TERRORISTS
Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Tiffany said he was at Fort McCoy in Tomah, Wisconsin, when the first 2,000 refugees arrived there.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“None of them had gone through the SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) process,” he said. “I asked about it.”
“People could walk right off from the base without any authorization from the commanding officer. We sounded the warning bell on that. And now finally, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security is talking about this and saying this is a threat to national security and to our local communities.”
Read the full article here
