USCIS Director: ‘We Owe a Huge Debt of Gratitude’ to Afghans Who Helped Us, But Number Brought Here Exceeds Those Who Helped

On Monday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow said that “we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the individuals over in Afghanistan who were actually helping us to secure the country and to secure that mission before this disastrous removal from the country. However, the number of people that were involved in Operation Allies Welcome, it does not comport with the number of people that were actually helping the U.S. mission there.” And everyone has to be vetted now.

Host Rob Schmitt asked, “[I]t’s such a debacle, because there were a lot of good people in Afghanistan that helped our troops try and secure that country for 20 years. But the problem is, is that you’re bringing in a huge group of people from a country that also has a radical Islamic issue as well, which is a religion that teaches people to blow themselves up in order to kill the infidel. So, when you have those, those two things don’t mix, and when you bring in upwards of 100,000 people, and you don’t vet them properly, think of how many sleeper cells like this D.C. National Guard shooter we could have sitting in this country right now. It’s terrifying.”

Edlow responded, “Which is why we have paused as much of this as we have, because, you’re absolutely right, we don’t know who we’ve got here. We’ve got to figure this out. But, at the end of the day, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the individuals over in Afghanistan who were actually helping us to secure the country and to secure that mission before this disastrous removal from the country. However, the number of people that were involved in Operation Allies Welcome, it does not comport with the number of people that were actually helping the U.S. mission there. I think that’s really the key. And we have to take the reins here from the Department of Homeland Security to vet them all.”

Edlow added that USCIS looks at if people will improve the economy and “the American way of life.”

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