National Guard shooting brings scrutiny to Afghan refugee program

The man accused of shooting two National Guard members in Washington is one of about 76,000 Afghans brought to the United States after the chaotic withdrawal of the U.S. from their country as the Taliban took over, authorities said.

The program, called Operation Allies Welcome, was created after the 2021 decision to leave Afghanistan following 20 years of American intervention and billions of dollars of aid.

Democratic President Joe Biden, who oversaw the withdrawal started by his predecessor — Republican President Donald Trump — said the U.S. owed it to the interpreters and translators, the fighters and drivers and others who opposed the Taliban to give them a safe place outside of Afghanistan.

But others — including Trump and many Republicans — said the refugees were not properly vetted in a resettlement process they said was as chaotic and poorly planned as leaving the country to the Taliban.

“This individual — and so many others — should have never been allowed to come here. Our citizens and servicemembers deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden Administration’s catastrophic failures,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said.

Accused shooter worked with CIA before coming to US as refugee

The accused shooter, identified by law enforcement officials as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, worked with the CIA “as a member of a partner force in Kandahar,” Ratcliffe said in a statement Thursday. It didn’t specify what Lakanwal did for America’s spy agency.

The Kandahar region in southern Afghanistan was in the Taliban heartland of the country and saw fierce fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 following the al-Qaida attacks on Sept. 11. The CIA relied on Afghan staff for translation, administrative and front-line fighting with their own paramilitary officers in the war.

Little is known about Lakanwal’s four years in the U.S. or why he drove across the country from his home in Bellingham, Washington, where a former landlord said he lived with his wife and five children.

Lakanwal was granted asylum in April under the Trump administration, according to #AfghanEvac, a group of veterans and others working to get Afghans who helped the U.S. out of the country in exchange for their help.

Like all asylum seekers, he would have had to undergo fingerprinting and iris scans, a full background check and interview and a risk assessment, the organization said.

Operation Allies Welcome brought tens of thousands of Afghans to the US

Groups that help resettle Afghans said the actions of one man shouldn’t reflect negatively on the tens of thousands who have gone through the various legal pathways to resettling in the U.S. and the others who find themselves in limbo after Trump suspended almost all resettlement programs for nations across the world when he took office in January.

“I don’t want people to leverage this tragedy into a political ploy,” said Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac.

After leaving Afghanistan, tens of thousands of those seeking resettlement ended up in sprawling air-conditioned tent villages at military bases like Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in central New Jersey, Fort McCoy in Wisconsin or at Fort Bliss in Texas.

After months of health screenings and background checks many were resettled in established Afghan communities in northern Virginia and the surrounding Washington area, as well as Northern California and Texas. States where between 1,000 and 3,000 have settled include Arizona, New York, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Nebraska and Pennsylvania, according to State Department data.

Trump stops aid for resettlement after taking office

Trump’s executive order shortly after taking office in January suspending federal funding for resettlement agencies made it tougher to help refugees with basic necessities like food and rent handcuffing the mostly religious groups that help them.

The president, who has described Afghanistan as “a hellhole on earth,” already planned to review every Afghan who entered the country under Operation Allies Welcome and reiterated that goal after Wednesday’s shooting.

“If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” Trump said in a message released on social media, adding that the shooting was “a crime against our entire nation.”

Trump administration wants to shut the door to most refugees

Trump also used his message to attack refugees from Somalia who have settled in Minnesota, saying they are “ripping apart that once-great state.”

It’s part of this administration’s goal both to deport people in the country illegally and close the country to most refugees. Trump said he wants to remove anyone “who does not belong here or does not add benefit to our country.”

One of the Afghans who made it to the U.S. was Mohammad Saboor, a father of seven children, worked as an electrician and A/C technician with international and U.S. forces for 17 years. He resettled earlier this year in California and told The Associated Press he looked forward to sending his kids to school and giving back to the country that took his family in.

“I believe that now we can live in a 100% peaceful environment,” Saboor said.

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Associated Press journalists Eric Tucker and Martha Bellisle contributed.