What we know about Afghan vetting under President Bidenpublished at 10:56 GMT
Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify senior journalist
There have been repeated claims that the suspect in Wednesday’s Washington DC shooting entered the US under a Biden-era Afghan resettlement scheme that did not carry out adequate vetting.
At an FBI press conference earlier today, US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro said “this is what happens in this country when people are allowed in who are not properly vetted”.
And in a press release, external shortly after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the suspect “is one of thousands of unvetted Afghan nationals let into the country under the Biden administration's Operation Allies Welcome program.”
More than 190,000 Afghans have been resettled under this scheme , externaland another programme called Enduring Welcome following the Taliban takeover in 2021, including those who worked on behalf of the US government.
The official government website, external for Operation Allies Welcome mentions a “rigorous” and “multi-layered” vetting process, which involved collecting biometric information such as fingerprints and other biographic data from Afghans before they were allowed to enter the country.
However, a 2024 audit, external carried out by the US government watchdog, the Office of Inspector General (OIG), found weaknesses in the government’s ability to identify potentially negative information (such as national security concerns) about some Afghans who had entered the country under Operation Allies Welcome.
Earlier this year another OIG audit of the scheme , externalcommended the FBI for its role in screening Afghans for national security risks.




