The Biden administration’s long series of unforced errors just keeps on growing.
Former FBI Special Agent Kenneth Gray, who worked in the bureau’s counterterrorism division, warned that terrorists in Afghanistan, posing as refugees, could use one of the blank visa forms reportedly being distributed in the country by the State Department to board U.S.-bound airplanes.
“The threat of having Islamic State or al Qaeda come into the country is not increased through the southwest border,” Gray said, according to the Washington Examiner.
“It’s the entry of al Qaeda and Islamic State in the groups of refugees that are being taken out of Afghanistan and possibly to the United States because of the lack of vetting procedures that would normally go on to expedite getting all of these people out of Afghanistan,” he said.
Gray added, “When you provide blank visas without specific names already on them and without going through the vetting process, don’t be surprised when you end up with ISIS or al Qaeda showing up with those visas in hand.”
The State Department has sent a printable form to Americans still stuck inside Afghanistan and to Afghans who may qualify for Special Immigration Visas, according to David Fox, an American who operates a marketing agency in Kabul. He told ABC News that the form, sent to thousands of people, contains no serial number, no barcode and no name.
Fox said he, his wife and their 3-year-old son traveled to the Hamid Karzai International Airport several days after the fall of Kabul along with another family hoping to flee the dangerous country.
They were turned back by U.S. Marines who were shooting warning shots and throwing flashbangs to get the crowd to disperse.
“The Marines are just firing their weapons, firing warning shots in the air, throwing flashbangs. And every time they would do a series of volleys of warning shots, the whole crowd would surge back. If we stayed there longer, there was the chance that we would, you know, pass out from exhaustion,” Fox told ABC News.
The next day, he said, he received an email from the State Department that included a copy of the blank visa form.
“What do you think happened when these people received a document like this that has no name? Of course, they printed out a hundred copies,” Fox said.
“You have tens of thousands of Afghans who now have this kind of ridiculous, bogus document that the State Department created,” he said.
David Fox, an American in Kabul, joins @ABCNewsLive to share his experience trying to leave Afghanistan.
“For me, as a father, I have to weigh the risks of these different options…The airport is very dangerous.”https://t.co/7rqpuCh0mM pic.twitter.com/vNuUhGio6M
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) August 19, 2021
The Examiner reached out to Gary Ackerman, a professor at the University at Albany in New York, who said he didn’t see the State Department form as all that problematic.
“I don’t think the top echelon of al Qaeda or ISIS is going to be strolling down Central Park in New York City,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a huge threat of somebody saying, ‘I know what the visa papers look like — I’m going to do Photoshop and do it and come to the U.S.'”
He pointed to the fact that “terror watch lists” and “databases” are now far more extensive and easier to access than they used to be. Additionally, Ackerman said, law enforcement has more tools available. Biometric data such as “facial scans” and “fingerprints” makes it easier to detect fraud.
Ackerman also said that if new information becomes available once an immigrant is released into the population, the government will pursue that person.
I must confess I don’t share his confidence. Consider the Biden administration’s track record with illegal immigrants who have crossed our southwest border.
When one considers that tens of thousands of Afghans have been evacuated from the country over the past two weeks, the likelihood that some are not who they claim to be is great.
Last week, the New York Post reported that an Afghan evacuee with “potential ties to ISIS” had been detained in Qatar and that 100 others had “been ordered to undergo further security screening.”
Former President Donald Trump expressed his concerns in a recent statement, saying: “We can only imagine how many thousands of terrorists have been airlifted out of Afghanistan and into neighborhoods around the world. What a terrible failure. NO VETTING. How many terrorists will Joe Biden bring to America? We don’t know!”
NEW!
President Donald J. Trump:
“Biden surrendered Afghanistan to terrorists and left thousands of Americans for dead by pulling out the Military before our citizens. Now we are learning that out of the 26,000 people who have been evacuated, only 4,000 are Americans… pic.twitter.com/jaEYNViukb
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) August 24, 2021
Making sure terrorists don’t enter the United States isn’t something that should be left up to chance.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
