A man who had been convicted of rape and deported from the U.S. was allowed to board an Afghan evacuation flight and reach America, law enforcement sources say.
Heydari is being held at the Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green, Virginia, The Washington Times has learned.“They are bringing far too many people in far too quickly to be able to effectively vet them,” said Ken Cuccinelli, a deputy secretary at Homeland Security in the Trump administration .
Heydari ’s exact path to entry is not clear, though it’s unlikely he holds a Special Immigrant Visa. Those were reserved for Afghans who provided significant support for the U.S. in the war effort.
It’s also not likely he is a refugee, given his immigration history.
That leaves parole, a power the homeland security secretary has to grant admission to the U.S. in exceptional humanitarian cases. Most Afghans evacuated to the U.S. appear to be parolees rather than having official immigration status.
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A senior administration official briefing reporters last week said security checks were supposed to be completed outside the U.S.
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Either that process wasn’t followed in the case of Heydari or his rape conviction and deportation weren’t enough to keep him off the evacuee flight.
Heydari came to the U.S. as a refugee sometime in the previous century and was granted a green card in 2000.
A man whose name and age match Heydari ‘s pleaded guilty to rape in Ada County, Idaho, in 2010. He served more than five years in a state prison and was released on supervision in December 2015, according to state records.
He was ordered deported by an immigration judge in 2016 and was removed in 2017.
When Heydari arrived in the U.S. on the evacuation flight, officials tried to persuade him to cancel his request to enter, formally known as withdrawal of application for admission, but he appears to have refused.
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{snip} Most appear to have been entered under Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ power of parole, special permission that is supposed to be reserved for exceptional humanitarian cases.
Rep. Thomas P. Tiffany, Wisconsin Republican, toured Fort McCoy in his home state on Friday. Of the 2,000 Afghans being held there, not a single one was an SIV holder, he said.
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