NEWS HEADLINES: 18,000 Afghan Evacuees Were on Terror Watchlist

The man who now warns Congress that 18,000 Afghan evacuees were on the terror watchlist is exposing just how recklessly the Biden team gambled with your family’s safety.

Story Snapshot

• U.S. counterterrorism officials now say roughly 18,000 Afghans brought here under Biden showed up on the FBI terrorism watchlist.
• About 2,000 of those evacuees reportedly have ties to terrorist organizations and are called a top current threat.
• Specific Afghan parolees are accused in an ISIS election‑day plot and the killing of U.S. National Guard members.
• Inspectors general say Afghan refugees under Operation Allies Welcome were not fully vetted before release.

How Biden’s Afghan Evacuation Turned Into a Homeland Security Headache

In August 2021, as Kabul collapsed, the Biden administration launched a frantic airlift, flying more than 80,000 people out of Afghanistan and into the United States under the banner of Operation Allies Welcome. Much of this was done using a tool called humanitarian parole, meant for case‑by‑case emergencies but instead deployed on a mass scale. Subsequent testimony and oversight reports describe rushed, improvised vetting that struggled to keep up with the volume of arrivals.

By 2023, Senate statements citing Department of Homeland Security data indicated that over 70,000 Afghan nationals had been paroled or admitted into the country through this program. The stated goal was to protect interpreters, contractors, and others who had risked their lives alongside American troops. Yet as data emerged, critics warned that the administration’s speed‑over‑security approach created dangerous blind spots that could be exploited by bad actors determined to reach U.S. soil.

The 18,000 Watchlisted Afghans and 2,000 With Terror Ties

Those fears gained new weight in December 2025, when National Counterterrorism Center Director Joseph Kent testified before the House Homeland Security Committee. Kent told lawmakers that the government had identified around 18,000 individuals from Afghanistan admitted in 2021 who appeared in the FBI terrorism watchlist, the database of known and suspected terrorists. Within that group, he said roughly 2,000 had ties to terrorist organizations and described them as probably the top terrorist threat the country currently faces.

These numbers do not mean 18,000 convicted terrorists, but they do reveal how many evacuees had serious flags attached to their names when checked against U.S. intelligence systems. The FBI watchlist encompasses varying levels of concern, from associates to hardened operatives, and Kent’s assessment underscored that even a small fraction slipping through could have devastating consequences. His remarks also highlighted how the rushed intake phase left security agencies with the harder task of cleaning up risks inside the homeland after the fact.

Real‑World Cases: From ISIS Plot Allegations to Fallen Guardsmen

Beyond statistics, several disturbing individual cases have crystallized public anger. Lawmakers have focused on an Afghan national, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, arrested for alleged involvement in an ISIS plot to carry out a violent attack in the United States on election day. Reports indicate he entered via the same parole structures used for Operation Allies Welcome, raising direct questions about how a suspected ISIS‑linked figure made it through screening and onto American streets under a program advertised as rescuing allies.

Another shocking example centers on Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who arrived in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome without a Special Immigrant Visa, later obtained asylum, and has since been accused in the shooting deaths of two National Guard members. That incident, occurring around Thanksgiving 2025, hit military communities especially hard. For families who buried loved ones after years of war, seeing their killers linked back to a chaotic evacuation only deepened the sense that Washington’s political decisions were being paid for in American blood.

Inspectors General Confirm Vetting Failures and Policy Overreach

Multiple inspector general reviews have now put official weight behind concerns many conservatives voiced from the beginning. The Department of Homeland Security inspector general reported that at least two Afghan parolees admitted under Operation Allies Welcome were known national security risks at the time they were let in. In other words, the problem was not just missed data; authorities in some cases had clear warnings in hand yet still waved individuals through into American communities.

The Department of Defense inspector general separately concluded that Afghan refugees were not fully vetted before arrival and resettlement. These findings support the charge that Biden officials treated parole authority as a back‑door immigration pipeline, bypassing the more rigorous refugee and visa processes designed to protect the homeland. In Congress, critics have argued that this categorical, large‑scale use of parole violated the statute’s intent that such relief be granted sparingly and case by case, especially where national security is at stake.

From Open Borders to Embedded Threats: The Broader Security Picture

Kent’s testimony also placed the Afghan evacuee issue inside a larger picture of border and immigration breakdown under Biden. He noted that between 2021 and 2025, more than ten million non‑citizens either attempted illegal entry or were denied at ports of entry along the southern border, with roughly half ultimately released into the country. He warned that in addition to the 18,000 watchlisted Afghans, the government still does not fully know who crossed during those years of loosened enforcement.

For Americans already worried about crime, fentanyl, and terrorism, the idea of thousands of watchlisted individuals and millions of poorly vetted entrants living inside the country feels like a direct assault on basic government duties. Conservative lawmakers are now pushing to tighten or repeal broad parole programs, demanding that future crises never again justify mass admissions with incomplete checks. The Trump administration has echoed those calls, framing tough borders and strict vetting as non‑negotiable pillars of national and family security.

Sources:

US admitted 18,000 known and suspected terrorists from Afghanistan in 2021: Official

Congressional Record: Senate floor remarks on Operation Allies Welcome and parole policy