Sen. Lankford pens letter to Biden admin demanding 'basic answers' on Afghan refugee vetting process

EXCLUSIVE: Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford was joined by several of his Republican colleagues in the Senate to send a letter to the Biden administration seeking answers on the vetting process for Afghan evacuees sent to the United States following two criminal indictments being filed against refugees housed at Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy.

"Regarding Afghan nationals who have been resettled in the United States, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memorandum on August 23, 2021 instructing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to ‘parole certain Afghan nationals into the United States,’" the letter says.  ‘This memo explicitly notes that ‘some of these individuals were in various stages of processing for immigration status in the United States...but were not able to complete these processes because of the certain situation in Afghanistan.' While the Biden Administration has stated in briefings and in fact sheets that Afghan parolees undergo ‘biometric and biographic screening,’ the Biden Administration has yet to provide my staff, members of Congress, or the public with basic answers about its vetting procedures for Afghan parolees or demographic information about the Afghan parolee population."

The letter then outlined some of the "basic answers" that Lankford and his Republican colleagues in the Senate Homeland Security Committee are looking for.