The tragic shooting last week of National Guard members deployed to Washington, D.C., has sparked renewed concerns about the lack of vetting conducted on foreign nationals admitted into the United States during the Biden administration.
Now, amid news that the accused D.C. attacker is an Afghan national who entered the country as part of former President Joe Biden’s “Operation Allies Welcome” scheme in 2021, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced a pause on visa issuance for anyone traveling on Afghan passports, as Breitbart reports.
It was on Wednesday that 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the aforementioned Afghan national, allegedly ambushed members of the West Virginia National Guard who were deployed to the nation’s capital.
The attack took the life of Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and left U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe critically injured.
Reporting has since revealed that Lakanwal was initially vetted by the CIA amid Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he ultimately secured asylum approval earlier this year under Donald Trump’s administration.
The scenario has revived past concerns about insufficient vetting of Afghans said to have provided aid and support to U.S. troops during their time overseas, prompting the State Department to issue a statement declaring that it has, as Fox News notes, “IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports.”
The declaration continued, “The Department is taking all necessary steps to protect U.S. national security and public safety.”
Not surprisingly, critics of the administration have already weighed in, voicing the belief that the State Department action is unlawful.
Among those expressing frustration was a representative from AfghanEvac, a group focused on the relocation and resettlement of Afghan allies who worked collaboratively with U.S. troops prior to the American military’s exit from their country.
The group’s president, Shawn VanDiver, opined, “It appears Secretary Rubio is attempting to shut down the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program in direct violation of federal law and standing court orders.”
VanDiver went on, “He is seemingly acting at the direction of President Trump and Stephen Miller, and there is no doubt this is the outcome they have been driving toward for months.”
He added, “They are using a single violent individual as cover for a policy they have long planned, turning their own intelligence failures into an excuse to punish an entire community and the veterans who served alongside them.”
Naysayers aside, the administration appears to be standing firm on the subject of rooting out any arrivals who, like Lakanwal, may have nefarious motives and the capacity to do great harm, with Trump himself observing that “when it comes to asylum, when they’re flown in, it’s very hard to get them out. No matter how you want to do it, it’s very hard to get them out. But we’re going to be getting them all out now.”
Rubio, reacting to the tragedy and the actions the administration is now taking, stated plainly, “The United States has no higher priority than protecting our nation and our people,” and that is a sentiment with which few could easily disagree.
