President Joe Biden’s Department of Defense does not know how many Afghans flagged on terrorist watch lists have sought refuge in the United States via evacuations out of Afghanistan.
During a press briefing this week on the Biden administration’s evacuation efforts in Kabul, Afghanistan, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he did not know how many Afghans seeking resettlement in the U.S. had been flagged as matches for individuals on terrorist watch lists.
The exchange went as follows:
JENNIFER GRIFFIN: How many individuals on terror watch lists have been screened or found at any of the screening points either in Qatar, Ramstein, [Germany], or in the U.S.?
JOHN KIRBY: I don’t know. We’ll have to take that question and get back to you.
Pentagon officials, though, told Defense One this week that “up to 100 of the 7,000 Afghans evacuated as prospective recipients” of Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) seeking permanent resettlement in the U.S. have been “flagged” as “potential matches to intelligence agency watch lists.”
“There’s certainly been a number of them,” an official said of the Afghans flagged as possible matches for individuals listed on terrorist watch lists.
At least one of those Afghans seeking an SIV to enter the U.S. has been detained in Qatar after officials said his background revealed possible ties to the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization.
Also this week, NBC News revealed that in at least five cases at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghans have attempted to board U.S.-bound flights using fraudulent American passports that do not belong to them.
“The U.S. mission team reported at least five cases of Afghans who presented U.S. passports that didn’t belong to them … highlighting fraud concerns and complicating the process of screening people to enter the airport,” the NBC News report stated.
Though Biden has touted that Afghans are being screened at U.S. Military bases abroad, he has ignored that they are also being flown to the U.S. before having completed their visa processing. Specifically, Afghans are being sent to Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort Lee in Virginia, Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, and Fort Dix in New Jersey to continue their processing.
Over the last 20 years, nearly a million refugees have been resettled in the nation — more than double that of residents living in Miami, Florida, and it would be the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida.
Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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