Senator Hawley s Opening Remarks at Afghan Vetting Hearing Joint Judiciary Subcommittee 01 14 26

Thank you very much, Senator Cornyn. Thanks to all the witnesses for being here. Mr. Adleman, if I could just start with you. You are the deputy inspector general for the agency charged with overseeing the Afghan parolee program. Is that correct? That's correct. In 2022, your office found that President Biden's DHS allowed some Afghans into the country before they were fully vetted, including, if I remember correctly, one who had been liberated from prison by the Taliban. Do I have that correct? That's correct. I think we're going to see this exhibit maybe over the side of my shoulder here. I just want to read directly from your report. CBP allowed some evacuees to enter into the United States who were not fully vetted. CBP paroled one evacuee into the United States who had been liberated from prison by the Taliban. CBP paroled other, another evacuee who posed national security concerns. Now early reports by the inspectors general at DOD and the FBI found that over 50 known or suspected terrorists had entered the United States. As a result of the Biden administration screening or lack thereof. And last month, the director of national intelligence said that 2000 Afghans in America may have ties to terrorism. That is a very, very big number. So I just want to talk a little bit about how this happened and see if I can get your help in doing that. Let me just start with testimony that this committee, the full committee, the judiciary committee previously received in 2021, then DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified that the administration had a rigorous vetting process in place. I think we've got a quote of his here. We have taken steps. I'm quoting him now to make sure that the vetting program is indeed rigorous. Now he said, this may have been in response to a question from me. He said that indeed the vetting did deviate from normal refugee screening. That was an understatement, but he went on to say, we have taken steps to make sure the program is indeed rigorous. So you investigated the vetting process. Did you find that the Biden administration's DHS had a formal vetting process in place that they followed carefully? The department did not have a formal process at the start of the OAW. Okay. Can you just say that one more time? The department at least could not provide us with a formal screening and vetting process at the start of the OAW process. The department did not have a formal screening and vetting process in place. The most that the Biden administration did according to your investigation was to run Afghans biometric and biographical information. I think is what you found like their names and dates of birth and other biographical information they have. They may have supplied. Is that correct? Are that probably correct? That's correct. Until December of 2021, when they began requiring in-person interviews. So until that time for the first several months, they were relying on biographical information supplied by the Afghans as well as some biometrics. Now your office found that that approach was severely flawed partly because many Afghans did not know their birth dates. Is that correct? Explain, explain this. That's correct. There was missing information from the OAW population, including first, last names and date of birth. There was about 11 to 12,000 that did not know their date of birth. How many, sorry? Between 11 and 12,000. 11 and 12,000 who did not, which is a cultural thing, I think, but obviously presents an issue for us when doing vetting. So 11 or 12,000 who were admitted for whom we didn't even have their date of birth. That's, that's pretty extraordinary. Let me ask you this. Did the Biden administration require Afghans to show identification at ports of entry? The department requested identification, but not all Afghans had formal identification such as a passport. We found over 30,000 that did not have formal identification. Can you just say that number one more time? How many who didn't have an identification? I believe the number's actually 36,000. 36,000 who could not show identification at a port of entry. Here's a quote from the report. CBP's concepts of operations allowed its officers to admit or parole evacuees into the country without presenting proper identification documents. 36,000 of them. That's, that's astounding. And then my understanding is to do the, the bare bones background checks that were actually performed, DHS, the Biden DHS sent a list of Afghans to the department of defense and the FBI. That process would normally take months. Would it surprise you to hear that the DOJ's inspector general found that the list of evacuees was submitted to the FBI via email and the FBI was given two hours to respond? I can't confirm that. I can just say that it was, there was very limited time to conduct the screening and vetting of those evacuees. Yeah. Here's the quote. It's over my shoulder. I think DOD and CBP created lists of Afghan refugees, which were submitted to the FBI via email with only two hours to respond. Let me just ask you finally, I know my time is about expired. Just when it comes to interviews, normally refugees, SIV applicants are required to attend an in-person interview. Uh, Mr. Edelman did, did DHS systematically interview evacuees before they were admitted? Was this, was it all of, were all the evacuees interviewed? No. Did they systematically conduct mental health screenings? Not that I'm aware of. Well, all of the above should have been done. And the fact that tens of thousands were admitted without so much as an ID, without a birth date, I think it's really no surprise why we are where we are. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.