[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 194 (Thursday, November 4, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7781-S7784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Afghanistan

  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I rise today to speak about an issue 
that is very concerning and has to do with our national security and 
our homeland security.

[[Page S7782]]

  I am the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs Committee, and in my role on that committee, we have done a lot 
of investigation into what happened in Afghanistan in terms of the 
rushed and chaotic evacuation.
  Unfortunately, I am here today to talk about a new threat to our 
homeland security due to the Biden administration's failure to 
adequately vet the Afghan evacuees who came through this chaotic 
process.
  Like many of my colleagues here on the floor--I think I can speak for 
them--I support the resettlement of those who stood with us and our 
allies who stood with us in battle, in particular, over the past two 
decades in Afghanistan. That is important. Yet everybody recognizes 
that the rushed nature of the evacuation resulted in some of the wrong 
people coming out and many of the right people not being rescued from 
Afghanistan.
  Too many people were left behind. There is no question about that. 
There were American citizens left behind and permanent residents left 
behind, and many of the Afghans who had worked with us and with our 
allies as interpreters, as drivers, who worked at NATO, or who worked 
at the United Nations were left behind--so were a lot of people who 
were actually in the process of getting what is called a special 
immigrant visa, an SIV. Those would be our allies in Afghanistan, the 
Afghans who, again, stood with us as drivers or interpreters and so on.
  Getting information has been really hard from the administration, and 
it is very frustrating to me, also to every one of my colleagues, and 
to the American people. In fact, in the recent continuing resolution, 
we actually got language included that requires, by November 30, for 
the administration to tell us exactly how many SIV holders--special 
immigrant visa holders--were left behind, how many citizens were left 
behind, and how many people, who were employees of a U.S.- or a U.N.-
funded partner organization, were left behind. We still haven't heard, 
so we don't know the information.
  What we do know is that very few of the evacuees who came out were 
either American citizens, permanent residents, SIV applicants, or, 
certainly, SIV holders. In fact, we know from the Defense Department 
that there were only about 700 holders of SIVs who came out of the, 
roughly, 78,000 people who were evacuated to the United States.
  Let me say that again. Only about 700 of those people were SIV 
holders. That is out of thousands of SIV holders and applicants who 
were left behind in Afghanistan. There were 78,000 people who got out, 
but the vast majority of them--again, I am not represented by any of 
these groups that we would have thought would have been brought out.
  It is also clear that, in the rush and chaos at the Karzai Airport, 
the majority of those who were evacuated were neither American 
citizens, green card holders, Afghans, nor special immigrant visa 
holders, as we talked about.
  So, just as we have an obligation to help resettle those who stood 
with us, we also have an obligation to ensure that our communities are 
safe and that we know who is being released into our communities. This 
means not releasing people who have not been fully vetted. We want to 
know who these people are. They might possibly have records--criminal 
records. They might have terrorist affiliations. That is why you need 
to do the proper screening and vetting.
  Secretary Mayorkas testified in September before the Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where, again, I serve as 
the top Republican. The testimony was about the vetting procedures of 
the Afghan evacuees.
  He said: ``There is a robust screening and vetting process in 
addition to expertise both in the transit countries and here 
domestically.''
  ``There is a robust screening and vetting process both in the transit 
countries and here domestically.'' I wish that were true, but, 
unfortunately, it is not.
  An unclassified briefing last week with Federal officials from all of 
the relevant national security Agencies confirmed what our committee 
staff had already discovered through our in-person oversight of the 
vetting operations. They toured operations here in the States. They 
also toured operations overseas at what are called the lily pads, where 
people are brought from Afghanistan to a foreign destination and then 
brought to the United States.
  What they found and what was confirmed at that meeting last week is 
that there is not a robust screening and vetting process for all Afghan 
evacuees. It is true that there is a screening process. This is what it 
consists of: providing fingerprints and your name and, many times, a 
facial image--so your face, your fingerprints, and your name--to a 
Federal database at the overseas lily pads. But unless the evacuee was 
a known terrorist, a terrorist affiliate, or a criminal whose name, 
face, or fingerprints were stored on the system, there was no vetting; 
there were no interviews--nothing else--for Afghans who have been 
paroled into the United States.
  Now, here is the problem with that: Our database is not complete. 
Despite repeated attempts to obtain the information, by the way, we 
don't know how many Afghans were successful in getting past the 
database screening I just talked about, but we are told by those on the 
ground that it was the vast majority.
  In other words, very few people were picked up through this database 
we talked about, which is DHS, the State Department, and intelligence 
services. Relying on hits on this database--this biographic and 
biometric database that we have--is not adequate because the databases 
do not have information on all Afghans. Certainly, they don't have 
information on all Afghans who may be terrorists or who may be 
terrorist sympathizers or who may have criminal records. We didn't have 
a database like that, so we are pinging it against a database that was 
incomplete.
  Those Afghans with no information in the systems at all are not a 
known risk--I acknowledge that; and most of them are good people--but 
this does not mean that admitting them with no additional scrutiny is 
an acceptable risk.
  The best way to know something more about someone who is in the 
process of being paroled into the United States is through intensive 
in-person interviews. That is how it is traditionally done.
  Interviews allow Federal officials to dig deeper into an evacuee's 
background and learn more about their affiliations, as well as their 
beliefs about the United States and the Western world.
  In fact, we learned in the 9/11 Commission report effective in-person 
interviews by U.S. government officials prevented at least three 
individuals who were intending to join the 2001 terror plot and 
attacks--it kept them from entering the country and contributing to 
that tragedy on September 11.
  One of the major lessons from the 9/11 Commission was that if the 
U.S. Government had conducted face-to-face interviews of all 19 of the 
9/11 hijackers, the attacks may have been prevented altogether.
  How soon we forget.
  The requirement of an in-person interview is a standard process that 
normally applies to all refugees. It would have been appropriate to 
consider most of these Afghans to be refugees, who would have been 
subject to persecution from the Taliban due to their status as a person 
who worked with us or because they were part of a vulnerable group, 
including a lot of women and girls.
  Interestingly, the Biden administration wants to treat the Afghan 
evacuees as refugees when it comes to their benefits, but they are not 
following the necessary refugee security procedures to vet those 
individuals.
  Our oversight identified many other issues and concerns with the 
vetting process. For example, if an Afghan did have identification, 
such as an Afghan national ID card or passport, the screening process 
did not include validation of the documents beyond a visual inspection; 
no follow-up.
  The officials working at the military bases in Europe said they did 
not have any specific training or expertise in identifying a fraudulent 
Afghan ID card.
  So, again, our folks went over to these foreign locations, these so-
called lily pads, talked to the people who were doing this screening 
process, and said: When you get an Afghan ID card, what do you do?

[[Page S7783]]

  They said: We don't have the expertise to identify a fraudulent 
Afghan ID card, so we assume that it is accurate, and their identities 
are logged into a national security database, a U.S. national security 
base--database, in some cases, of course, then, based on what could be 
a fake ID.
  If the evacuees did not have any identification documents, which 
apparently was the case with a substantial number, no ID at all, 
Federal officials simply logged them into our databases based on what 
they said was their name and their date of birth. So they created a 
national security database from what these individuals volunteered.
  We are told it is not unusual for Afghans not to know their actual 
birth date. It is just not always part of the culture to record or have 
that information. That is understood. But this has resulted in a number 
of the databases, including information about birth dates, being 
January 1 of a particular year. So there are some people logged in to 
say January 1, 1990.
  The problem here is that our systems rely heavily on an individual's 
birthday as a key biographic identifier.
  You get asked your birthday all the time, I am sure, whether it is 
getting healthcare, whether it is at a security checkpoint.
  And now we have entered information into our systems that we cannot 
rely on to be accurate; in some cases, could be false identities.
  Based on our oversight--again, trips to these sites with Democratic 
staff members, Republican staff members--talking with those 
coordinating the Afghan resettlement here in the United States, it 
appears that each side of the ocean--folks overseas and folks here in 
America--thought the other side was doing more vetting than was 
actually occurring.
  The official overseeing the screening of an evacuee at a lily pad 
overseas told us he thought the vetting was being done when evacuees 
arrived on U.S. soil. When asked if he felt the screening and vetting 
being done at the military bases in Europe were sufficient to be 
confident in America's security--since evacuees can and have left the 
bases in the United States--he said they were not.
  But that is exactly what is happening.
  A senior official at a base in the United States confirmed that there 
are no in-person vetting interviews at any of the seven domestic 
military bases that are now housing evacuees, and that all vetting 
interviews were done overseas at the lily pads. So it is a little bit 
of one pointing to the other.
  Officials also confirmed that when an evacuee arrived in the United 
States, the only screening that was conducted was the standard Customs 
screening that all international visitors and tourists go through at 
the airport.
  Specifically, evacuees provided their information, if they had it, at 
the Customs booth, and if there were no flags, they were immediately 
paroled into the United States for 2 years. Customs would check their 
information against the records created at the lily pads, effectively 
creating a feedback loop. So information that might not be accurate or 
might not be fulsome, might not be appropriate is then added to other 
information and one checked against the other.
  Once here, the Afghan evacuees are not detained. According to the 
administration, more than 2,000 of these individuals have now left the 
military bases where they are being housed and are freely moving about 
our communities.
  Again, my view is most of these people are good people. Some of them 
did help us. As I said, it is a relatively small number. Somewhere 
around 75 percent are not SIV holders or applicants or citizens or 
permanent residents. But we don't know who a lot of these folks are. 
And, again, people think that they are at the military bases because 
that is where they have to be until we do fuller, further vetting. That 
is not true. There are no interviews being done here, and they are free 
to walk off the military bases, and a couple thousand have.

  The only conditions of parole that must be met prior to leaving the 
military base is to receive vaccinations for measles and COVID-19, and 
agreeing to update DHS with any change of address within 10 days. That 
is it.
  I led an amendment with some of my colleagues to the recent 
continuing resolution to ensure that not all of the Afghan evacuees are 
automatically eligible for what is called a REAL ID.
  If you have been to an airport recently, you know you are going to 
need a REAL ID to get on a plane. A REAL ID is supposed to be issued 
only to individuals with a valid Social Security Number; proof of 
identity, which is shown through a birth certificate; and two proofs of 
residency, like a bank statement, lease, or utility bill, that show 
that you permanently live in the United States. There is a process to 
get a REAL ID.
  It was a 9/11 Commission recommendation, by the way, that we have a 
REAL ID procedure.
  But while we U.S. citizens have to abide by all these requirements to 
get a license or an ID, Congress waived one requirement for Afghan 
evacuees: the requirement to provide proof of lawful residence.
  This undermines the REAL ID system, and it should not happen.
  The amendment I offered with colleagues would have required the 
Afghan evacuees to follow the normal process to require a REAL ID. It 
would be to apply for asylum and then receive a REAL ID. Until their 
asylum application is approved, they would be able to fly on an 
airplane with that asylum application or their work authorization, 
which many of them have received.
  Unfortunately, this body rejected that amendment with a narrow vote.
  Due to the reckless policies of the Biden administration, we have the 
situation where an Afghan evacuee with no presence in our databases, no 
documents establishing identity, can have a cover identity created by 
the U.S. Government at, for example, Ramstein Air Base, where we went 
and talked to individuals, based on a stated name, volunteered, a 
stated birth date, and then can receive a REAL ID when they come to the 
United States.
  Doesn't seem right to people when I explain that, and it is not, but 
that is the system.
  I have come down here a number of times to talk about what is going 
on on the southern border. Again, in my role as the ranking Republican 
on the Homeland Security Committee, we do a lot of work in that area.
  Unfortunately, it is getting worse, not better, in terms of number of 
people coming across, the number of drugs coming across, and the amount 
of human trafficking.
  What is astounding is that, as open as our southern border is under 
this administration, if an Afghan tried to cross our southern border, 
they would be interviewed by a Federal law enforcement official.
  Under this Afghan resettlement operation, though, the Biden 
administration has lowered the bar for security even below that of our 
southern border.
  We already know from the administration there are Afghan evacuees who 
pose dangerous national security threats, who were able to pass the 
screening process we talked about at the lily pads overseas and to 
arrive on U.S. soil.
  We still don't know how they were apprehended, but we do know from 
media reporting that there are at least 10 evacuees who have made it 
past all this screening into the United States prior to the national 
security concerns being raised, and causing them currently to be 
detained in Federal facilities as a national security threat. That is 
10. We don't know how many more there are.
  The lack of appropriate screening and vetting of Afghan evacuees by 
this administration is reminiscent of a pre-9/11 security mindset.
  Remember, we were at war in Afghanistan for 20 years. We know that 
ISIS-K and al-Qaida are operating in Afghanistan. These dynamics in 
Afghanistan should be reflected by ensuring that normal national 
security vetting processes are applied to all evacuees. I don't think 
that is too much to ask.
  I stand ready to work with the administration and all of my 
colleagues in the Senate, both sides of the aisle, to address and 
mitigate this vulnerability to U.S. homeland security. I hope it is not 
too late.
  I believe we have got to address the REAL ID eligibility of Afghan 
evacuees and require in-person vetting prior to distributing any new 
REAL IDs to those Afghan refugees who have

[[Page S7784]]

reached our shores. For future Afghan arrivals, it is clear that the 
vetting and interview process must be strengthened and enforced. And, 
again, in talking to the Federal officials on the ground overseas, they 
would agree.
  It is not too much to ask that Afghan refugees be treated the same as 
all refugees when it comes to security vetting. We can't continue to 
allow a lack of effective screening of Afghan evacuees to endanger our 
communities.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The senior Senator from Maryland.
  (The remarks of Mr. Cardin pertaining to the introduction of S. 3166 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. CARDIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. OSSOFF. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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