Afghan refugees in America transform from CIA allies to deportation targets
A key insider who helped run the evacuation of Afghans following the fall of Kabul says the US had a moral obligation to accpet them and their lives will be at risk if they’re returned home.
Haris Tarin, the former chief-of-staff to the Operation Allies Welcome program which saw nearly 80,000 Afghans relocated to America, is warning the return of those already accepted into America would put their lives in danger from the Taliban.
His comments highlight the moral dilemma facing the Trump administration after the President last week unveiled a reassessment of the status of all those granted entry to America during the Biden administration.
The crackdown was announced following the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington by 29-year-old Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a former member of an elite Afghan “zero unit” whose members worked closely with US forces and communicated directly with CIA advisers.
Mr Tarin said that members of the “zero units were the most heavily vetted individuals of all the Special Immigrant Visas and individuals that came to this country” and warned the crackdown unveiled by the Trump administration would only sow anxiety and fear in the Afghan community.
“You have to remember, to work with the US intelligence agencies, you would have to have gone through multiple layers of security checks to actually be to be qualified to work with US intelligence,” he said. “Because their work was so sensitive. Because the levels of trust had to be so high. And because they were engaging in activity and work that was so sensitive, they had more screening than anyone else did.”
The Vice President of Policy and Programming at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Mr Tarin told The Australian the response from the administration would place 200,000 Afghans living in the US in “legal limbo” – describing it as “disproportionate” and an “over-reaction”
He said that the phenomenon of soldiers going rogue and killing civilians was a “pattern that we saw” in the two-decade long Afghanistan conflict and acknowledged that the “zero units were part of that.”
But he stressed that Australian soldiers had also done the same thing.
“It was something that we did see, but it was not only specific to these to these units. It was also forces that were from the NATO coalition as well,” he said.
Mr Tarin said the best assumption was that Lakanwal – who was granted entry to the US in September 2021 – was “not involved in any wrongdoing because his asylum case was approved under the Trump administration and he went through multiple clearances both under the Biden and Trump administration.”
Whether he was involved in rogue killings or attacks on civilians was something “only the CIA can answer actually. And the Department of Defence. Because that would rely on the fact that those individuals were actually held accountable. And it went on their records, and whether those intelligence agencies actually brought that out in the investigation process. And that investigation process is only known to the intelligence agencies.
“So, the assumption is that he was not involved in any of that unless that information was hidden by the intelligence agencies like the CIA.”
Sketching out the treatment by the Taliban of Afghan nationals who helped US forces during the war, Mr Tarin said that “they used to kidnap these individuals. They used to threaten their family, their tribesmen. They used to engage in fear and scare tactics to get these individuals to not support the mission. And so the history was there. There was killings.”
This reality means that – regardless of the review into the status of all Afghan nationals accepted into the US under the Biden administration – it will be very hard for the Trump administration to return them to their homeland.
In Australia, Afghan citizens have been prioritised in the Humanitarian program. In 2023-24, 6,961 visas – 41.6 per cent of all offshore visas – were granted to Afghan nationals while 50,371 Afghan nationals had lodged applications for offshore humanitarian visas.
A spokesman for the Australian Department of Home Affairs said that all visa applications were subject to “health, character and security checks, which are conducted before individuals are granted a visa.”
Doubts are also growing over whether last week’s shooting in Washington – which resulted in the death of 20-year-old Guard member Sarah Beckstrom and left 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe in a critical condition – was a genuine act of terrorism as initially claimed by the US President.
Lakanwal, who drove across the country from Washington State to carry out the attack, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and two weapons charges from his hospital bed after he himself was shot during the gunfight.
He has not been charged with terrorism offences at this stage, although an investigation is underway and another National Guard witness said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.
Mr Tarin told The Australian that Lakanwal was suffering from severe mental health issues like many veterans of the Afghanistan conflict. He said a key issue was that “these individuals … were not getting the support that they needed to integrate into communities. You know, we’ve cut refugee services for so many people over the past year in this country. We have diminished benefits that these individuals would receive.”
“I mean, we don’t even do that with our own veterans, let alone veterans of other countries. Our own veterans, over 30,000 American veterans have died by suicide.”
However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News’ Sean Hannity during the week that
“you can vet what people have done in the past” but “you can’t vet what people might do in the future.”
“You could allow someone into our country who has no history of radicalisation, perhaps they even have worked with you in the past. But they are susceptible to radicalisation once they enter the United States because they don’t assimilate well, because they fall victim to some of this online propaganda.”
Mr Rubio said this was a “real threat.”
“I do think it is a higher threat among people that come from cultures and backgrounds that make them – make it harder for them to assimilate once they get into the United States, and that make them vulnerable to Arabic-language, for example, propaganda by ISIS or al-Qaeda.”
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