DHS Watchdog Finds Vetting Errors in 40% of Files for Migrants Who Entered US During Biden’s Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal

Vetting errors were found in 40% of asylum applications for Afghan migrants who entered the US following the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general report released Monday.

The DHS watchdog’s review of a sample of 678 asylum applications from Afghans who resettled in the US under the Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) program found 303 missing aliases, 23 missing security checks and more than 150 other documentation issues.

“The prevalence and type of errors suggest US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may have missed opportunities to potentially link names provided by applicants to derogatory information,” the report stated, “which in turn would compromise the integrity of alien registration file (A-File) contents that future users rely upon for immigration administration and enforcement activities.”

In two cases, missed aliases and incomplete documentation involved individuals who may have potentially been inadmissible to the US on “terrorism-related grounds.”

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Republicans have long expressed concerns about the Biden-era Operation Allies Welcome program, which brought more than 70,000 Afghans to the US following the botched 2021 troop withdrawal.

The Post revealed last November that more than 5,000 Afghans brought to the US via OAW were flagged for “national security” issues. 

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Joseph Edlow, the head of USCIS, agreed with all five of the DHS IG’s recommendations but said the report did not appear to take into account that the “administrative errors” took place “amid broader, established, and robust screening, vetting and security checks safeguards already in place that minimize the impact of these errors.”

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