The American people deserve to know exactly how our government decided who to let into this country after the collapse of Afghanistan — and the truth from watchdog reports is ugly. The State Department’s own Office of Inspector General found it couldn’t even account for the total number of people evacuated in 2021 and admitted the agency relied heavily on the Department of Defense’s chaotic tracking during the noncombatant evacuation.
At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog has been blunt: Customs and Border Protection often did not have the critical identifying data needed to properly screen and vet evacuees, meaning people were paroled into the United States without full vetting. That is not an abstract bureaucratic glitch — it is a national security failure that any responsible administration would immediately fix.
These aren’t just one-off memos; a mandated joint review under the FY 2023 NDAA found systemic problems with how SIV applicants and other evacuees were processed, admitted, and tracked. The joint OIG work shows the mess was cross-agency, and that the paperwork and systems failures produced real blind spots where dangerous people can and did slip through. It’s exactly the kind of failure conservatives warned would happen when policy puts speed and optics over security.
Make no mistake: the government reports even identified evacuees with derogatory information who were in the continental United States, and agencies admitted they did not always use all available data when vetting people. The idea that our border and national security officials were operating with incomplete lists and blocked data-sharing with the military is unacceptable — and it raises the obvious question of who will be held accountable.
This is not theoretical. Recent reporting has connected violent crimes and serious security incidents to Afghan evacuees admitted during Operation Allies Welcome, reigniting justified public fears about the consequences of sloppy vetting. When tragedies happen, taxpayers deserve to know whether they were preventable and whether the people responsible for turning a blind eye will face consequences.
Enough with the bureaucratic excuses. Congress must demand immediate transparency: full accounting of everyone brought to the United States, a freeze on future parole decisions until rigorous vetting procedures are guaranteed, and a reexamination of data-sharing rules that let critical DoD intelligence sit siloed while CBP and the FBI remained in the dark. These are common-sense steps to put safety before virtue-signaling.
Patriots who love this country should be proud of rescuing allies, but rescue cannot mean recklessness. We can honor our commitments to those who helped Americans while also insisting our leaders restore order, competence, and accountability to the vetting process. If they will not, then citizens must demand better — because safety and the rule of law come before political theater.
