A shooting incident in which an Afghan refugee wounded two members of the U.S. National Guard has triggered renewed debate in Congress over refugee admissions and vetting procedures.
Fox News reported on Friday, December 5, that Republican Senators Tom Cotton, Susan Collins, and John Cornyn have written a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, calling for a review of security-screening standards for Afghan nationals.
The senators stressed that the Biden administration’s policies for admitting Afghans following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan contain “serious flaws.”
In their letter, the senators cited a report by the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General indicating that roughly 31,000 Afghan refugees entered the United States before the Department of Homeland Security established a vetting task force and that at least 50 of them were identified as having “potentially significant security concerns.”
They urged a review of screening standards, identification of refugees with security issues, and, if necessary, the immediate return of such individuals to Afghanistan or third countries.
This comes after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently arrested an Afghan national on charges of providing material support to ISIS-K.
