Warnings about Afghan evacuee vetting ignored before Guardsmen shooting

Before the tragic shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members in Washington on Wednesday and President Donald Trump’s call to re-examine green card holders from “countries of concern,” including Afghanistan, Fox News host Laura Ingraham had a warning about the Biden administration’s announcement that it was reviewing evacuees “on the back end” during the withdrawal.

The identification of a suspect has again raised concerns about the chaotic Kabul evacuation in 2021 and previous reports of abuse of evacuees at US military bases.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, originally from Afghanistan and once part of a CIA-linked team fighting the Taliban, has since been identified as the prime suspect in the shooting that claimed the life of West Virginia National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom of Nicholas County, West Virginia.

On Friday, “Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham told Fox News Digital that she and other conservatives have been alarmed by the failures of Biden-era reviews in the wake of the retraction since the Fox News host privately broke the story in September 2021 that members of Congress took concerns directly to the State Department about chaos at Army bases holding refugees.

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“Shortly after the Biden administration’s disastrous retreat, it was clear that their intention was to bring as many Afghans to the United States as possible,” Ingraham said in an email Friday. he wrote.

“Conservatives, including myself, have expressed serious concerns about the cost, the difficulty of assimilation, and the potential threats that remain unfulfilled,” he said. “The Biden team didn’t care.

“We kept hearing, ‘But we promised’ — Americans never promised anything — and they shouldn’t be forced to continue paying the price for the terrible mistakes of previous presidents.”

In September 2021, Ingraham privately reported that a top Republican had demanded answers from then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken over reports depicting chaos and unvetted, unaccounted-for evacuees from Fort Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia.

As Ingraham noted, Blinken had said the State Department was “trying to get as many people out as quickly as possible while the airport is operational.”

“This was your Secretary of State admitting that he didn’t care about vetting these people before we brought them to U.S. Soil,” Ingraham said at the time.

“And if you think they can be kept safely on U.S. military bases, think again.”

Then Representative. Mark Green of Tennessee privately provided Ingraham with a letter he wrote demanding answers from Blinken.

“I recently learned from someone at Fort Pickett, Virginia, that the Afghan evacuees were in full control of the complex and were even allowed to leave even though they had not completed the vetting process,” Green wrote.

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“My sources made shocking allegations, including multiple cases of sexual assault, and many evacuees were picked up by Uber drivers without any permission from authorities or being allowed to leave.”

Green summoned his own combat service in Afghanistan as an Army special operations flight surgeon to demand confirmation or denial of the claims made by the source, telling Blinken that the reports posed an obvious national security risk.

At the time, Ingraham compared Green’s letter to Blinken’s public statements. At a news conference at the time, Blinken said the administration was “focused on doing just that, in an effort to get as many people out (of Afghanistan) as quickly as possible while the (Hamid Karzai) Airport is operational.”

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“We’re doing accounting on the back end as people come to the United States,” Blinken told reporters at the time.

“If you think these will be kept safely on US military bases, think again,” Ingraham said about Green’s statement.

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Ingraham added in comments to Fox News Digital on Friday that Afghans evacuated from Biden’s withdrawal not only come from a culture hostile to Western values, but are also “very dependent on U.S. taxpayers to support themselves and their families.”

“This must end — yet another egregious Biden mistake that President Trump has had to address,” he said.

Green, a member and later chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee who left public life in early 2025, said in a conversation with Ingraham after the withdrawal that he had heard similar reports from bases outside Fort Pickett, Virginia.

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“DOD receives direction from the State Department on how to handle these situations,” Green said. “And the State Department doesn’t give them enough information. They let them go. They can take an Uber and leave the base. They don’t even know exactly how many there are there.

“So if they don’t return, they can’t hold someone accountable.”

Officials warned evacuees that visa processing would stop if they left the base, Green said, but such a warning appeared to have little effect on those leaving.

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“Then you get shocking allegations of harassment and sexual assault, and it’s truly horrific,” she said.

At the time, Ingraham reported that most of those evacuated on flights from Kabul arrived with no personal documentation, and she questioned how any “vetting” could be done on people who couldn’t begin to prove their own identity.

When contacted by Fox News at the time, the Biden State Department said that as a general rule it does not comment on communications with Congress.

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Then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CBS News that the administration was dealing with a “very small number” of evacuees who showed “any reason for concern.”

CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell pressed the secretary on whether he could guarantee that none of the “thousands” of prisoners released by the Taliban would come to America.

“I can guarantee you that we are doing everything possible to make sure they don’t do that,” Mayorkas said. he said.

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A year after Afghanistan’s withdrawal, lawmakers were still focusing on the effects of the apparent chaos.

Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., said on Fox News in September 2022 that he had heard similar reports from his home state of Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, as Green had heard from Virginia.

“Should it be a surprise that the American people were misled? This is no different than the Southern border, where Secretary Mayorkas went before the (House) Judiciary Committee and lied to us and told us the border was secure. A year ago, President Biden said ‘inflation is temporary.’ And now, a year later, we find out they didn’t review them,” Tiffany said. he said.

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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.

Tiffany said he was at Fort McCoy in Tomah, Wisconsin, when the first 2,000 refugees arrived there.

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“None of them had gone through the SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) process,” he said. “I asked about that.

“People can walk off the base without any permission from the commander. So we rang the warning bell. And now, finally, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general is talking about this and saying this is a threat to national security and to our local communities.”