National Security

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, also last week, an Afghan evacuee was arrested for threatening to bomb a building in Texas. The terrorists entered our country as part of a program called Operation Allies Welcome in the aftermath of the Biden administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Since 2021, I have warned the Biden administration, my congressional allies and colleagues, and the American public about the failure to vet Afghan evacuees. Unfortunately, the Biden administration was not honest with the American people about the program's vetting vulnerabilities.

I asked then-Director Wray about the program's national security, and I asked the same, this year, of Director Patel of the FBI.

This year, Director of National Intelligence Gabbard told my office an important data point: Of the more than 100,000 Afghan evacuees, as of August 2022, 1.6 percent had links to terrorism or other derogatory information. So, when you take that 1.6 percent, that is over 1,600 people who at the time of Biden's disastrous evacuation posed a potential threat to our homeland and to the American people.

On July 8, 2025, I came to the Senate floor and urged the current FBI and the intelligence community leadership to aggressively investigate evacuees. In September of this year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem told my office that, as of August 12, 2025, thousands of Operation Allies Welcome parolees were potential national security threats.

As we have tragically witnessed, the Biden administration's failure to properly vet Afghan evacuees has serious consequences and probably consequences we haven't seen beyond the killing last week.

I think we should thank the Trump administration's efforts--and I thank them--for responding to my oversight requests and their efforts to fix the Biden administration's failures.

This Senator's oversight work will continue.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source