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Event Summary
This month marks the first anniversary of the terrorist attack near the White House that took the life of West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom and seriously wounded fellow National Guard member Andrew Wolfe. This event honored and remembered both service members, recognize their sacrifice, and pay tribute to the victims of the attack by an Afghan national that brought the consequences of immigration and vetting failures into sharp focus.
The event also examined the national security implications of the admission and adequate vetting of Afghans following the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Speakers will focus on the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which provides visas to Afghans who claim to have worked for, or on behalf of, the U.S. government. Many of the over 70,000 Afghans who have SIVs and green cards will be eligible to apply for naturalization starting in 2027, creating a sense of urgency for re-vetting them.
Experts discussed reported vetting failures, fraud, and security concerns, including cases involving Afghans arrested in connection with alleged ISIS-inspired terrorist plots and other threats against Americans. They also addressed the need to re-examine the vetting of Afghans already admitted and identify policy solutions to prevent future security failures.
Panelists
Joseph Abraham, DHS VOICE Office, Director
Wade Miller, Center for Renewing America, Executive Director
Simon Hankinson, Heritage Foundation, Senior Research Fellow, Border Security and Immigration Center
Phillip Linderman, Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, Founder and Chairman
Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies, Executive Director (moderator)
Date and Location
November 9, 2026
Washington, DC
MARK KRIKORIAN: (Off mic) – and we are – we’re cohosting this event with the Heritage Foundation and the Ben Franklin Fellowship both to honor the sacrifice of two National Guard soldiers who about a year ago were ambushed by an Afghan right near the White House, and also to have a discussion of – a policy-related discussion. Why did that happen? What can we do about it in the future?
But we’re going to start with a discussion of what kind of effect this – I was going to say tragedy, but it wasn’t tragedy; it was really a crime – has on the families involved. And for that we have with us Joe Abraham, who is the director of the VOICE Office at DHS – Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement – because there was no victims engagement office in DHS before a CIS alumnus founded it during the first Trump administration. And Joe is now the director of it. Joe is himself a(n) Angel dad whose daughter Katie was murdered by somebody who had no – or, was killed by somebody who had no business being in the United States, and so he’s become a real activist on this issue.
So, Joe, if we could start with you, tell us, obviously, not the policy side, how did an Afghan get here – we’re going to talk about that – but what is the effect it has on families? And what does VOICE do?
JOSEPH ABRAHAM: Yeah. So let’s start with VOICE. I’m going to start with that first. So, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. And this office was not around when Katie was killed, so I didn’t have that type of resource. I kind of look at it the way – and I’ve been here about three months in this office, so I look at it as, like, four pillars.
We provide releasable information on immigration and any criminal case studies or status. We do – if you think of immigration courts, we do the impact statements. The illegal immigrant will always have resources, where the victim – and I’ve seen this firsthand on the criminal side – there’s no real – no real resources for the victim. They’re left by themselves. They sort of want you wished away is what I have – my experience has been. So we try to get impact statements done for them and get that in front of the immigration judge so he doesn’t just hear from the – from the illegal immigrant.
We also have the DHS-VINE Information Exchange. States have that. Ours is more geared toward the immigration status.
And then any support services. This is what I really could have used. So if you think of the – whether it’s – you know, we’re trying to get it where state, local, federal, any type of services you might need while you’re going through that and navigating this – these horrific tragedies, catastrophic events.
So, Katie, she was just an amazing young woman. I mean, ever since she was little, she was one of these personalities you put her in any environment and she read the room outstanding, just incredible. And never had to worry about her. I have three kids. I got a – now a 27-year-old boy, 23-year-old girl, and Katie would have been 22. So the sisters were more like twins – less siblings, more twins. But of the three, Katie could go into any situation and always come out. She just had this “it” factor. I don’t know how to explain it. You just saw her, the way she strung her words together, the way she – her comebacks. Even as a child, she was one of the younger cousins and would always be able to explain to the older ones what the adults were saying and what it meant. So she had this beautiful energy about her.
She loved the water. So we’re a hockey-playing family. All mine have played hockey. Family play hockey. All four brother(s). I mean, and I – my daughter played at – Lauren, the surviving daughter, played at college. And Katie used tell me, I didn’t want to play hockey, Dad. I love the water. It’s like hockey, but it’s melted, right? It’s just – I’m in the water now. So she’s more comfortable in that. So this was her water polo friend group. She had so many friend groups.
I remember the Friday she was going down to University of Illinois in Urbana – sanctuary Urbana, Illinois – and we weren’t paying attention all that much. All we heard was everything’s good, the border’s secure, people are being vetted, there’s screening happening, we know who’s in our communities. So you just – you know, you’re just kind of going on with your life, trying to head down, right? So I remember talking to her that Friday, and I said, Kate, you know, I never see you on the weekends. You got so many – like, so many friends running around, coming through the house, and you’re like – I never get to see on the weekends. How about just blowing off this weekend and you and I do our thing, right? We’re going to talk about the future. I was going to retire last year and go spend half my time with her at college, and we were going to get an apartment, and I’d spend time there. And her 21st birthday was coming up and I wanted to do a trip or something. So I was always begging her to go. No, we’ll talk afterwards; maybe next weekend. Hug her, kiss her, love you, and then she goes off with her friends.
I didn’t know that was the last time I’d ever see her. It was – it’s so gut-wrenching, because you get that phone call, just like the National Guardsmen’s families did I’m sure. What people don’t recognize is the family and those left behind, or in their wake. It’s so abstract to these policymakers. You know, they come up with these decisions and these processes in some fancy building, and then it’s us who have to live with that. And we do, and we’re going to live with it the rest of our lives. I like to say, or at least I told Illinois folks there, that Katie got a grave and I got a life sentence because that’s what I’ve got right now.
So she goes down there, five girls in a Honda Civic at a stoplight in front of Carle Hospital there at University of Illinois, and a(n) illegal immigrant, drunk, intoxicated, alcohol in the car barrels into them almost 80 miles an hour. Just devastated the car. So Katie took her last breath in that intersection. And I can remember Glenn Beck and I actually went down there and had a – did one of his shows at that intersection, so I was very emotional. But he fled. Her friend passed away the next day or two. They kept her alive, and she was an organ donor so they kept her alive for the organs, and she ended up dying. And then three were seriously hurt. And he fled. He left. He took off and left these kids there.
So he’s a Guatemalan. I find out later as the process is going. Illinois was mute on the immigration side of it – not a word about it, wouldn’t talk to us. I didn’t have a voice to go to to find out. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I’m relying on them. We were law-abiding. This is the first experience with law enforcement and courts. So we find out that he’s a Guatemalan; previously deported; didn’t have a day of schooling; didn’t speak English, didn’t speak Spanish; couldn’t read, write, communicate at all in those languages; spoke some Mayan indigenous language called Kʼicheʼ, and we struggle with translators on that.
So – then he also had HIV. Illinois didn’t even bother checking on that. He’s in the communities, multiple partners. I know Illinois decriminalized knowingly passing, but apparently he said he didn’t know. So nothing there.
But we get that call on Sunday, and it’s just – this just rips your heart. I mean, you have to live with that.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Like you said, you got a life sentence. I just wanted to ask one question that sort of, in your experience – now, you’ve been doing this three months, so you’ve dealt with at least some families so far. Have you noticed any difference between the experience of families like those – like that of Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who was murdered, as opposed to the instance you’re talking about, where essentially it’s vehicular homicide, but in other words Katie wasn’t murdered in the same way, although the state’s still responsible? Have you noticed any, like, difference in the experience with families, anything at all like that?
MR. ABRAHAM: No, not at all. Like, think of – think of Sheridan Gorman, the Gormans. And we’ve gotten close with them. And I probably have 80 families I talk to consistently – or at least on a text thread; maybe not talk all the time. But the Gormans, I mean, her daughter was shot in the back of the head in Illinois at Loyola University in Chicago, just looking at the northern side, shot and left to die on the pier. But these are – and then there are others that don’t get graves, like Patty Fox’s daughter Carissa or Dalilah Coleman. They just have catastrophic injuries that will, you know, change – changes your family for the rest of their lives, right?
But the – but the feeling’s still there. It’s still raw no matter how many years go by. And the biggest additional weight that this country puts on you by doing what they did from a policy standpoint is why an organization like VOICE is so important is because these are foreseeable. There’s no way you can tell me that you decreased the risk by behaving the way you did. And then it was preventable. So then you have that additional weight that’s on your back, right? And that’s what you’re ruminating on – like, why did it have to happen the way it happened? Why did the country leave us behind like that?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Yeah, because, I mean, tragedies happen all the time, obviously, as bad as that is, but that’s the issue. The policy issue is, why was this allowed to happen, what happened? So – and that’s what our panel, our next panel, is going to be about. Thank you –
MR. ABRAHAM: Thank you.
MR. KRIKORIAN: – Joe, for telling us about the VOICE Office. Is there a website?
MR. ABRAHAM: Yeah. It’s ICE – well, it may change. Right now it’s ICE.gov/VOICE. At some point, it’ll be VOICE.gov, I think.
MR. KRIKORIAN: And it’s for families who have been affected by immigrant crime.
MR. ABRAHAM: That’s right. And most of the calls we’re getting right now is marriage fraud, financial fraud.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Oh, interesting.
MR. ABRAHAM: Yeah. We’re getting a lot of activity there.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right. Good. Anyway, thank you, Joe.
MR. ABRAHAM: Thank you.
MR. KRIKORIAN: And now we’re going to have our panel come on up. (Applause.) So, Phil and Wade and Simon, as they’re coming up – as they’re coming up, I’ll introduce people.
To my immediate left is Simon Hankinson, who is a co-founder of the Ben Franklin Fellowship and is a fellow now at the Heritage Foundation, retired Foreign Service officer. Gave all kind of – spent a lot of time interviewing visa applicants. I hope none of the people who got past you ended up doing bad stuff, but maybe. We’ll see. (Laughter.)
Next to him is Wade Miller, who is the director of the – what is it called again, Wade? I’m sorry.
WADE MILLER: Center for Renewing America.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Center for Renewing America. Pardon me. A Marine Corps veteran. Was in Iraq and in the Horn of Africa. And so the Afghan issue, obviously, relates specifically to his experience because we’re talking about bringing people who – from Afghanistan like Lakanwal, who murdered Sarah and wounded significantly her colleague. And you know, there’s been active lobbying by certain veterans groups to bring even more Afghans in. So, Wade, I think you’re going to be able to give us some insight on that.
And then Phil Linderman, who is also a retired Foreign Service officer, co-founder and chairman of the Ben Franklin Fellowship, and actually on the board of the Center for Immigration Studies, and interesting enough was at one point head of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau or office. Or you can clarify me on what that –
PHILLIP LINDERMAN: Yeah, clarify that, just the identity information, the director of the office that managed identity information related to terrorist suspects.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right. OK. So – but, again, this is a big part of the question when we’re talking about vetting, and that is the question here. Obviously, we’re talking about Afghans who were brought here, like Lakanwal and others, who have committed terrorist acts after we brought them here after the fall of Afghanistan. Were these people screened? Is it even possible to screen people from a country where a third of the people think their birthday was on January 1st because they have no idea when their birthday was?
So I guess I would start with that, maybe start with Phil and then talk to anyone who wants. Is it really possible to screen people for – even for this Special Immigrant Visa Program, which is a subset of people who worked for or with the United States supposedly, does vetting even mean anything in this context?
MR. LINDERMAN: Great question. Let’s break it down just a little bit so that the general public can follow it.
So you use the word “screen” and “vet” differently. “Screen” should be used, basically, to know as much information as you can about why that person should have an opportunity to enter the United – a visa application. Then the forms are filled out. You have a reasonable understanding the identity of that person that’s there. This would be done by typically consular officers and other people who are just looking at the basic bona fides. Let’s call that screening.
MR. KRIKORIAN: OK.
MR. LINDERMAN: And then vetting comes to the question of let’s take a deeper dive on the identity of this person. And that means – and it’s a very important thing for Washington policymakers to understand that – what we can do when we take a deeper dive into the databases that hold identity information on people that we have identified are enemy or enemy suspects, terrorists largely. It was largely built after 9/11, as you know, where we had failing on vetting people. We typically screen people for a visa, for example, and then we’ll do a background vet on the individual’s identity. And that means: Do we have in our holdings information that says that this person represents a threat as a terrorist or a serious criminal against the United States?
It’s very complicated because the U.S. government has multiple databases. DHS has one. State Department has one. DOD has one. FBI has one. Those are largely – FBI, DOD, DHS – biometric holdings of information. Now, it gets complicated because there are a number of government actors here, but largely biometric information – fingerprints, facial recognition, retina scans – that’s pretty – that’s the gold standard. If you have that information, at least the person you’re dealing with you know is the same person. The name may change, other factors may change. But for years much of U.S. vetting was based on biographic information, which was a name, a date of birth, maybe a passport number or something. It’s very sketchy information. That was the disaster that brought about 9/11. So let’s go 25 years past 9/11. We have large holdings of biometric information, and that is – that is a great tool. That information can confirm that the person that you’re dealing with is a match, and you have a hard match based on biometric information. You have – you have a(n) identity that you know who it – who it is.
But then you have to take a deeper dive: What is the derogatory information on this individual? And how valid is that? So, without going through the large zigzag, the U.S. government pings across these databases if you’re applying for a visa and a(n) SIV, special immigrant visa, in this case. Typically, humanitarian parole would be pinged against this, as would even refugees. But that information is only as good as what we’re holding. It does not capture any of the people we don’t know about. This is a great failing.
Much of the system the United States is built – is designed to have information provided to us by the government we’re dealing with. Think of the Visa Waiver Program. We have a good partnership with a government that allows its citizens to travel to the United States because they have shared their own derogatory and identity information with the U.S. government. Now, in the case of Afghanistan it never happened, right? The Taliban, we have no partnership like that. So, for Washington policymakers to understand, in the context of the chaos that came out of Afghanistan, where you had some screening failures because you didn’t know who people were, they had – they had poor documents, et cetera, some of these people then were never vetted at all, and they were able to arrive in the United States.
So these two concepts go back and forth. I’ll stop here in a minute. But just reinforcing the idea that when Washington policymakers – think of Alejandro Mayorkas – say we vetted these people, all it means is that we checked into our databases and we didn’t have a match on that identity. This person could still be a dangerous person. Remember, the 9/11 hijackers, we knew who three were. We had information on the three. The other suicide bombers, we had no information at all about them. So those are the two concepts, and it’s only a partial solution to say we vetted this name.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right. It’s kind of like instead of garbage in, garbage out, it’s like nothing in, nothing out. In other words, what are you going to do?
So my staff has reminded me I’m remiss. I’m terrible at being a moderator. We’ll take questions. There should be cards for those who are in the audience. But also, those who are watching on streaming can email [email protected] – that’s [email protected] – with your questions.
A question for you, Wade, next – and this is, like, upstream, I guess, of this question – is what kind – how much of a responsibility do we have to bring Afghan allies – or, quote, “allies,” unquote – to the United States, given that the regime that we were – that we propped up fell?
MR. MILLER: Sure. So this is a question of degrees; like, is it good policy to take care of those who helped us versus do we have a moral obligation that we have to bend over backwards, we owe it to these people. And I think this is where I think veterans have especially been unhelpful – and I say that as a veteran, again – because they, I think, look at this backwards. I think that they – that what happened is, is that we helped them. They owe us. We went over there. We tried to take care of totalitarian regimes for them. We gave them an opportunity to fight for their country. We don’t owe them anything. They owe us a deep gratitude for what we tried to do to help them, again, notwithstanding whether you agree or disagree on certain decisions on foreign policy. But, nevertheless, a lot of people died fighting in that war for them.
Now, that is different from is it good policy if someone helped us, was actually helpful, should we get them to a region nearby that is safe. And I’m probably in that lane, where I think that there was a lot of people that we probably should have gotten out of Afghanistan and somewhere in the region where they were actually safe from Taliban reprisals.
The biggest problem with all of this is that a lot of these interpreters were just really not actually allies. They worked. They were incentivized because we paid them. And on one of my deployments in Iraq, you know, which I would say is more moderate in – I mean, still culturally very radicalized, but more moderate of a population than Afghanistan – we had four interpreters on one of our deployments. There was one that I thought was energetically and enthusiastically supportive of our mission, and the others it was quite clear to me that they were economic hires, and they were incentivized not because they agreed with us but because we hired them. And I think a lot of people in Afghanistan were in that bucket where they were either really ambivalent to either side and just saw this as an economic opportunity, or didn’t agree with us but still saw it as an economic opportunity. And as a reminder, you know, there were hundreds of, you know, green-on-blue attacks, and probably thousands more that we could never actually attribute to green-on-blue formally because, you know, if you’re a(n) Afghan interpreter or a truck driver, and you get grid coordinates and pass those on, and mortars or rockets come into a base and kill American soldiers, how do we know who provided that or how that – you know? So a lot of these people were just bad actors or just otherwise culturally unsuitable.
So even the one interpreter that I liked, I still recognize he was culturally unsuitable for the United States of America. I mean, he was still very much Muslim. He had very radicalized views. And you know, this gets into the vetting issues long term, that there’s not enough cultural suitability factors put in play. Like – and I think a lot of these correlate directly to things that are very problematic for our country and bringing them over here. So, for instance, if you believe that apostates should be fined, I’d probably have a question mark on whether that person’s suitable. If you think that they should go to jail for a long time –
MR. KRIKORIAN: Wait. Fined is the moderate option.
MR. MILLER: That’s what I’m saying. If you think they should go to jail for a long time, now I’m very opposed. And certainly if you think they should be put to death.
But our system hasn’t been set up really to in mass scale ask these questions. And even to the degree that we have a more methodical process, I don’t think we have enough cultural suitability questions. And that’s – you know, there’s a lot of reasons for that, but – and I’m hopeful, and I have reasons to believe that they’re moving in the direction of that in DHS. But, nevertheless, none of that was really applied. And the worst part of it was in a system that was already broken we had veterans in real time – and I remember when this was happening in real time CIS and CRA were some of the few organizations that were out there saying, what’s going on here? And we had members of Congress, Republican members of Congress out there browbeating, veterans organizations out there browbeating. And I think that it was really emotional manipulation, and it was not actually in the best interest of the United States of America and our citizenry to bring the overwhelming, vast majority.
And you know, if we re-vetted them with existing processes, maybe half of them no longer qualify. And I – but I would argue with an actual better vetting system, 90 percent plus would not qualify.
MR. KRIKORIAN: The real problem, though – and I remember writing this at the time – is once that cargo bay door closed on that airplane, it was game over. What were we going to do, send them back to Afghanistan? I mean, I’m not even averse to that. They’re going back to Afghanistan for weddings now, so.
But anyway, so I wanted to ask you. We’ve talked about – you talked about SIVs, the special immigrant visa. Could you tell us, Simon, what is a special immigrant visa? What’s that supposed to be for? And are people with those visas, Afghans we’ve brought here, more of a potential problem than regular Afghans that we brought in otherwise?
SIMON HANKINSON: So the U.S. refugee system identifies people overseas and brings them into the United States under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Numbers go up and down, but we have at least some screening to figure out, are you actually – Ilhan Omar, for example. Her family, I believe, came in under this program. You know, are you related to the people in your family? Turns out, not always. Are you a criminal? Are you a terrorist? All these basic factors have to be established. And are you a refugee? Do you qualify? And then we bring you in.
SIV is a completely different thing. So when I was serving overseas in embassies, you would have – we used to call them foreign service nationals, and then they’re locally employed staff now. But, basically, you’re in India; you got Indians working at the embassy, everything from driving cars to doing, you know, political work at a very high level. And they, basically, are the backbone and the majority of the staff. You know, in India would have been a couple hundred Americans and maybe 1,500 Indians. And after a certain amount of service – many years ago the U.S. government decided it’d be nice to offer that as a carrot – you work hard for the U.S. government for 20 years without a blot on your copybook, you’re an outstanding employee, what better person to settle in the United States? You speak English. You’ve worked for us. You’re going to be a productive American. And I personally signed off on a bunch of these. They are excellent candidates to immigrate to the United States in every way.
The problem was when we had the Iraq war and the Afghan war we had an awful lot of people who were working for us from – you know, people working out in the field with our soldiers, risking their lives who truly were at risk to –
MR. KRIKORIAN: Which is what – the image that people always present when they want to bring more in.
MR. HANKINSON: Of course. Exactly. But also the guy flipping burgers – lamb burgers – in the cafeteria or mowing the lawn, who might be a member of the Taliban in his spare time and might actually hate the United States but he’s getting paid, you know, five whatevers an hour, and so he’s going to do that job. So they lowered the standards, basically, for SIVs that were – again, you’re looking at a 25-year employee overseas with a – with a clean record versus – in Afghanistan and Iraq I think it got down to, like, one year of service with basically you haven’t shot anybody on your own side. I mean, I’m exaggerating –
MR. KRIKORIAN: And they didn’t actually have to work for the U.S. government either. Weren’t there – they could be working for contractors.
MR. HANKINSON: Yeah. By the end – right. By the end, you could be working for contractors and even NGOs. And it just became – and of course, corruption; anyone who knows anything about South Asia knows that Afghanistan is an incredibly corrupt society.
MR. KRIKORIAN: No, no! Come on.
MR. HANKINSON: It’s all about patronage, and you know, you can bribe anybody to do anything. So, yeah, the SIV system got badly corrupted, and is very different from the refugee admission system.
As to the pool, is one any more risk than another? You know, Afghanistan is an extremely violent country where most people hold pretty fundamentalist views on things like religion and women’s rights and politics and whatever. So, as a – as a population, they are at much higher risk. I think if you’re in European countries, they’ve done studies, you know, 10 times, 20, 77 times I think was a stat from Italy, the risk of committing certain crimes. So I would say on average – of course, each individual is an individual and can be judged accordingly, but they are – they do represent a higher risk. But between SIVs and refugees, I would think there be very little difference.
MR. KRIKORIAN: So you were talking about people who came in on special immigrant visas and we’d lowered the standards, and so you ended up with the truck drivers and the cafeteria workers, et cetera. But there’s massive fraud, as I understand it, in the SIV program; in other words, people who never worked for the government, all kinds of fraudulent stuff. As you mentioned, it’s – you know, corruption is pretty rampant. Any either illustrations or more details on how widespread the fraud was, and, I don’t know, some particular examples?
MR. MILLER: I’ll just make the point of, think in the United States we’ve got the DMV. Imagine in a country like Afghanistan, if this is run by the Taliban, like, virtually nothing coming out of their systems to the degree they have systems is trustworthy. These are types of things that you can just get paperwork if you’ve got the right connections with your tribal elders and this. You can just get essentially anything that you want as long as you’re sufficiently connected with the power brokers. You know, I can’t just go to the DMV and say, hey, Chuck, you know, give me some new papers. But in a lot of these countries that are high risk, that’s the way it works. And so the databases are completely unintelligible to the degree that they even have databases. And these two gentlemen probably know more about this than I do, but over there it’s – you know, no one can be trusted to be who they are because there is no infrastructure that we can trust and/or bounce it off of.
MR. LINDERMAN: Yeah, to add to that, we know from – during the Biden administration when this calamity happened and they set up a procedure to get people out, it was called the CARE office. And we know from whistleblowers who worked in the State Department that they would accept any kind of documentation to build on this point. We know the U.S. government was producing documentation. Some of that was done in a corrupt fashion. There’s been prosecution based on that. We know that many of the people who were managing the process were contractors of Afghan origin for language reasons and other, and they were very much, the whistleblowers have documented, complicit into all kinds of phony documentation, other corrupt mechanisms that was part of the quote/unquote “screening,” right? You’re going to talk to someone, you’re going to look at their paperwork, and all this sort of – it was already infected with enormous corruption, American corruption and Afghan corruption.
And we had on top of that the Biden administration. The Biden administration will go down in history as saying any foreigner who wants to come to our country should come to our country. As the president said, surge to our borders. They had absolutely no concern about security, authenticity, and identity, or any of this. And so that was the chaos that brought around all these people, the 200,000 that are now in our country.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right. Yeah.
MR. HANKINSON: And you asked for specifics, so I’ll just give you a couple. There’s a guy called Dilbar Gul Dilbar who was arrested last year, pled guilty to visa fraud, for which he only got six months. He paid someone to compile a bogus application, including a fake chief-of-mission letter. Because what’s supposed to happen? Look, we’re supposed to have, you know, Ahmed, who’s in the field fighting for us, and an American officer like Wade here says: That guy was in it with me. I can vouch for him. And then I’ve got two other guys who can also vouch for him. And then you go to the ambassador and say: Ambassador, will you sign on this? I give you my word as an officer. That is a chain of responsibility. We were having fake chief-of-mission letters and people who’d never met these guys. So this guy got in trouble for that.
Jeromy Pittmann was an American Navy commander who shamed his office and his country by being bribed to write fake letters of reference.
And then just the Washington – sorry, the New York Post reported this morning that about 13,000 people were admitted from Afghanistan with letters signed by an alleged CIA officer who doesn’t exist.
MR. KRIKORIAN: The same person –
MR. HANKINSON: The same person –
MR. KRIKORIAN: One fake person signed 13,000 –
MR. HANKINSON: Right, who – I mean, there’s skulduggery and then there’s just, like, outright fraud. So, who are these people? Who vouched for them? Nobody.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Unbelievable. Now, this was – this all started about five years ago, and people got green cards, and in five years with a green card you get to then apply for citizenship. So we actually have a cohort of people now who are, if not now, relatively soon going to be able to apply for U.S. citizenship, at which point, it becomes much more difficult to do anything. And so my question here is, can we re-vet the people we’ve already let in? What should that involve? And what do we do if we find stuff that’s a problem?
MR. HANKINSON: I’ll just go quick here. It is not a rubber stamp that you go from nonimmigrant visa, to legal permanent resident, green card, and then you become a U.S. citizen. It’s not automatic. There’s supposed to be steps at which you are vetted to make sure that you don’t hate America; that you understand, you know, five questions of American history; that you are not a criminal or a terrorist. So there should be a stage at which USCIS goes and looks at all these people and says, are they legitimate? But I think we should be more proactive and start vetting them now rather than wait till that late stage.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Re-vetting them, yeah.
MR. HANKINSON: Absolutely.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Wade.
MR. MILLER: Oh, yeah, I think the entire population sent in through the SIV program needs to be redone. I think that it needs to be categorically put on hold and paused, if not rejected, pending a status review. I think they need to go back through the entire, I think, process with increased and more stringent standards than we potentially had time for originally to do. I think the majority of them probably need to be sent back. I think that there might be a substantial population that we should think about moving into the region with partner countries, and then on a case-by-case basis an element of that population should – can be allowed to stay. But I think that the overwhelming, vast majority, if they’re not a terrorist, I think they pose – you know, we’re talking about how radicalized they are. You know, existing in a culture that is OK with “bacha bazi” activity may not have, you know, been on the form.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Which is, to put it elliptically, child abuse.
MR. MILLER: Yes. That’s the most sanitized version of it. But if this is a permissive thing and you’re fine with it, like, I don’t think you should be here. And fine if you’re not a security threat in a certain sense, but you’re not culturally suitable for remaining here. And I think that there’s a – we should go back through, and I think we should remove a lot, put some in partner countries, and then really hone in on which portion of that should remain.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Any thoughts, Phil, on that?
MR. LINDERMAN: Yeah. My data says there are about 70,000 SIV-approved of the – of the community of 200,000 from the diaspora. Those 70,000 SIVs we should focus on. We should send letters back. They should have to –
MR. KRIKORIAN: In other words, check to see whether the – a fake CIA agent vouched for them or whatever.
MR. LINDERMAN: Yeah. What was their original – what was their original basis for being approved? Simon documented how this was all very sketchy. Let’s go back to – we can send out letters. People who are authentic and want to prove themselves should be expected to step up. We have to recognize this was an extraordinary time with chaos that we’ve never faced before under this scenario, and the standards were very, very sloppy. And we have – we have a duty to the American people to do something like that.
We talk about the duty that we have to the Afghans who were there in the foxhole with our soldiers. We do recognize that. There is something to that story. But that has to be balanced against the duty, very fundamental, that we have to the American people, and that one trumps the other one. So let’s go back to first – you know, to first cases. We can do that with the documents that we have, and put the burden back on those SIV holders, and interrupt this process that gets them to U.S. citizenship.
MR. KRIKORIAN: And, actually, this is a follow-up question to this re-vetting idea. You were saying, Wade, that probably most of them should not – would not pass re-vetting for one reason or another. If it’s not fake signatures, it’s that they’re utterly incompatible with a modern society. What do we do with those people? In other words, where would we send them, Pakistan, or they’d be willing to take them? I don’t know, Iran is next door; maybe – what do we do with them?
MR. MILLER: I mean, I do think that we’d have to work with partner countries in the region, especially for those who are actually at risk. And as you mentioned, a lot of these people are now going back and visiting Afghanistan. I don’t think they’re at risk if that’s the case. So I think that we need to assess, you know, which – there’s probably different buckets, and then we need to assess out of those buckets which ones shouldn’t be here but are in threat, or at threat, or continue to be under threat. And my guess is that’s a manageable population that we can work with partner countries on relocating them. Might even have to come with some, you know, form of an initial financial incentive on that front. But I think it’s certainly doable.
And I think one of the things that we have to improve – and this is even if we vet – the people doing the vetting are limited by what they’re allowed to do. And right now, I don’t think that they have enough weapons by which to do their jobs to the degree that it needs to be done. And I think that we need – the Trump administration needs to continue moving forward on improving our vetting policies and what’s allowed.
MR. LINDERMAN: So this is a good point. So what I understand from the data, we went back and – out of the chaos and we vetted as many identities as we could, that is to find a match of one of our lists, right? And we have about a hundred names that we identified. I understand the data. So this goes back to the point that when you look inside our databases you’re not going to find that much information that helps you in this process. Obviously, those hundred – we have to do something with those one hundred, but we’re talking about a 200,000 number. Underscores the point that vetting is not a magic bullet in all of this.
Now let’s look at the diplomacy here. After the Taliban collapse, they put out the word that there was an amnesty. They would not take reprisals against anybody who worked with American-led forces in the region. They would make a point, the leadership said, of welcoming people back. Now, of course, we’re dealing with the Taliban, and nobody’s a fool here, and they’re not reliable. But the best information shows – there’s a DIA report from ’26, I think, that says they’re not systematically carrying out reprisals. This is a very fundamental point. OK, reprisals happen because it’s a very tribal society, it’s decentralized. They can’t control all that. But let’s go back to finding other solutions.
The solution is not to parachute these people into Pittsburgh and Los Angeles and Arlington County; it’s to keep them in the region. It’s even perhaps to work with the Taliban leadership – that’s what diplomats do – to find a way to say people will come back and we’re holding you accountable. We’ll incentivize you to make sure nothing happens to them, and we’ll also hold you accountable and we’ll put more pressure on you.
The bottom line is the solution that people come to us is not – is not viable here, and we need to find a way to encourage people to go back. As you’ve mentioned, Mark, there are many that go back. The leader of this AfghanEvac group, Shawn VanDiver, who’s their biggest advocate, has gone out and said, stop going back.
MR. KRIKORIAN: This is a veterans group that’s trying to bring more Afghans here.
MR. LINDERMAN: That’s right. And he’s telling them, don’t go back because it sends the wrong signal, right? Don’t go back for – et cetera. So American diplomacy should look at the Taliban as – you know, as a scoundrel-ist regime, but say, where do we work with it? How do we incentivize a way to send people back?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right. Are we still issuing special immigrant visas, Phil?
MR. HANKINSON: I don’t think we’re issuing them at the moment, but they’re gearing up to start issuing a lot more. And I got to ask – you know, I was never there. I served in India, so it’s, you know, close enough. I’ve been to Pakistan. How many of these people are there? They’ve got – we let in, what, a hundred and – almost 200,000 total, if you count families, and now we’re looking at another 200,000 or more that these activists are trying to bring in. It’s kind of hard to imagine that that many people really played a crucial role, even in our 20 years there, and have lives that are at risk.
And just to go back to the screening point of view, Consular Affairs, Phil and I both worked there; a lot of the people who work at the State Department, but not all, have had the attitude of getting to yes. How do I get around – you know? And the INS used to have a joke: It’s not over till the alien wins, right? It should be, prove to me that you qualify. So that’s where we should be now, not, like –
MR. KRIKORIAN: So the burden of proof on the applicant himself, yeah.
MR. HANKINSON: Absolutely. Show me what service you gave to the United States, and then show me some Americans who can vouch for you and that you are not a terrorist – that, you know, like, they have to pass the bar here. It shouldn’t be incumbent on us to go back and reopen, you know, 200,000 cases and go through each one.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Is it – we have a question here from a viewer which relates to this idea of people going back for weddings and what have you. Don’t we have some record of that? It seems to me that there has to be. I mean, they’re not sneaking out of the United States and then sneaking back in. If you’ve left, and if the record of that on your travel documents, it seems – can’t we just say, OK, that’s ipso facto proof you’re not – you don’t fear anything, and you’re going to get on the next plane, and we’ll fly you for free back to Kabul but you’re out of here?
MR. LINDERMAN: Well, I think some of the whistleblowers inside the government have urged CBP, who would be the point of identifying this information, to keep systematic records. But my information is that CBP is not keeping this information, and so, you know, it’s just being lost to the wind.
And it goes to the question of, instead of trying to put our emphasis on bringing in more people, as Simon said, we need to start looking at what we have in the country and what tools we can have to change the nature of the game. We will acknowledge that for the honor of our country there are people that maybe we want to take care of. We’ll acknowledge that. But we have to acknowledge also there’s a chaos that’s been – that’s been put into motion, and we don’t need to keep building on that by offering – the Congress offering up more SIVs, et cetera. We need to take stock of what we have. And so, you know, maybe this panel can contribute to the – to the notion that it’s a – it’s a moment to change directions.
MR. KRIKORIAN: And I do want to ask about the Congress thing, but Wade referred to finding other countries in the region. It seems to me that to the extent we do have a responsibility – and there are always – there are clearly going to be people like that that we basically owe. We don’t necessarily owe them an apartment in Arlington, Virginia; we owe them a way of not being killed. And so – and the French had a similar thing after the Algerian war. They took in a lot of Algerians. And I mean, they didn’t – there could have been other solutions. The same thing with Vietnam. We took in a lot of Vietnamese, and that ended up not working out terribly badly, actually, but they didn’t all necessarily have to come here. I remember years ago I was In Israel and there was, like, a Vietnamese restaurant, because even Israel took, like, 200 Vietnamese refugees or something. So my point here is only that the – to the extent we do have a responsibility, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have to move to the United States; a responsibility to help them avoid being killed for working for us.
MR. LINDERMAN: Yeah. I mean, for example, take the wet foot, dry foot policy against Cuba, right? We had all these Cubans fleeing, and we were dealing with a hostile regime, Fidel Castro, but we were able to make a deal. We said those Cubans intercepted at sea we would send back to Cuba, and we would – we would come up with a way to monitor what happened to them, and we did that. That was policy in Cuba for years, and I was part of that policy. It wasn’t perfect, but it basically worked. And it’s a much better scenario than what yours is, which is to get them an apartment in Arlington and deal – MR. KRIKORIAN: It’s not my scenario. I was just – (laughter) –
MR. LINDERMAN: – and deal with all the consequences of people who in many cases – not all, but this is the problem: Too many hold hostile ideas, alien ideas about what it is to live in our country. And our systems in place have no way, really, to weed those people out.
MR. KRIKORIAN: I want to get to that cultural vetting issue, but what’s the status now? Is there a push in Congress to increase SIV admissions? Because there’s a numerical cap for each year, but we take people and there’s a waiting list. So what’s the – what’s going on? What is – AfghanEvac and other advocacy groups, what are they pushing for?
MR. MILLER: I mean, there’s a lot of different proposals on this. And unfortunately, many of them are bipartisan in nature, with both Republican and Democrat support.
MR. KRIKORIAN: You know, we have familiarity with bipartisan immigration initiatives, but –
MR. MILLER: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And even Republicans going over to Afghanistan to get people out, which is in and of itself noble, but bringing them here, I think, is where they – was a policy mistake.
But I do think the left is going to push in the new Congress for – you know, they’re going to push against the current border security arrangements. They’re going to push for more funding for immigrant services. I think that they’re going to – everything that could possibly not be helpful they’re going to be pushing. Now, of course, there exists the ability to veto that, and to really get it done with any leverage it would have to be in a funding fight. Even there, though, I think that the president has the ability to push back.
And I – look, I know that, you know, he’s talking about making deals. You know, I think that’s strategic in nature. I wouldn’t read too much into that. And I also wouldn’t ignore it. I think we also need to keep an eye on it. But the president has said a version of this every single year since 2017; he’s never made an amnesty deal. So I’m not – like, read between the lines. I think be cognizant of maybe what the president is actually strategically trying to do here.
But I do think that it’s real in the sense that any time there’s a major fight, if something else becomes the major issue that’s where the give and take is, and then these other things remain. And so if this isn’t something that we highlight in the fight, then that could be one of the remaining things, and then a spending deal is made, and that –
MR. KRIKORIAN: It just gets folded in, in other words.
MR. MILLER: – makes it in the approps bill, and – yeah, that’s right.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Interesting. So we have a question here from a listener: If we were to ask the advocates of admitting more Afghans – I don’t want to just pick on AfghanEvac, that group, but they’re one of the high-profile ones; there’s others – what do they say when they – when you say, OK, well, what portion of these people are actual allies and what portion of these people – I mean, do they really submit that nobody’s dangerous that we have brought in through these programs they’ve backed?
MR. HANKINSON: I think they have the same mentality that people do on the left generally when it comes to immigration enforcement of any kind: You know, if you’re here for five minutes and you commit a crime, you are a New York man, Maryland man. There was a guy in New York City the other week and Mayor Mamdani was calling him, he’s a New Yorker. The guy was released at the border in, like, 2023, and had done nothing but work for a gang, as far as I understand, since he arrived here; was hardly, you know, a fully integrated, taxpaying member of society.
So, yeah, I think – look, I think they’re motivated by good reasons. Some of them that are veterans, you know, I can’t speak to their experience. I haven’t walked in their shoes. They’re probably thinking of legitimate cases, just like I think members of Congress are being sold on that – those legitimate cases that were out there in the field. They’re not talking about the guy who literally showed up at the airport at the right time and managed to get on the plane, and no one ever asked who he was till he got to Landstuhl or whatever in Germany, and then he’s like, oh, I lost all my papers, and now he’s in America about to become an American. Those people they just don’t have an answer for.
MR. KRIKORIAN: That was my point about the cargo bay door closing and it was all over. Phil and then Wade.
MR. LINDERMAN: So, Mark, I think you have to do focus – we do have to focus on AfghanEvac. AfghanEvac is the leading organization; its spokesman, this fellow Shawn VanDiver. What is AfghanEvac? It is a coalition of old open-border Biden organizations and some legitimately concerned veterans who want to know about the people who worked with them. It is an unholy alliance, and VanDiver’s come down on the side that – I’ve heard him say this – at a minimum there should be half a million – half a million – Afghans that we admit in. That’s his minimum.
MR. KRIKORIAN: So double the number we’ve taken in.
MR. LINDERMAN: Double the number.
MR. KRIKORIAN: More than double.
MR. LINDERMAN: Yeah. And on the security question, he simply says we vetted these people and there’s nothing on them. Again, it falls into the trap that the vetting is some kind of magic bullet. I think he’s playing some kind of, you know, the man who would be king from Kipling. He wants to sort of manage this diaspora for whatever reason.
MR. KRIKORIAN: That didn’t work out for the guy who was king in that story. (Laughter.)
MR. LINDERMAN: Yeah. So – but what we need to do is to focus the veterans on the fact that this is a coalition of open-border people who’ve opposed the Trump agenda on immigration from the very beginning and some veterans who want to do right by some people, but they – but they’re on the wrong track. The numbers – the numbers need to be very selective and surgical, not massive.
MR. MILLER: Yeah. I mean, just because, you know, we’re flipping a burger on a base doesn’t mean that you have a complex theory on the social compact. You’ve read John Locke. You understand that liberty is reason, freedom – you know, on and on and on, Thomas Paine. So we’re not talking about people – we’re talking about people who helped us; we’re not talking about people who are suitable to be an American. And, like, maybe there’s some outliers here, but this is a simple equation on their side. It is: They helped us. They’re under threat from the Taliban of losing their lives. Then, therefore, we have to do – and they fill in the rest of the equation of coming here, et cetera.
And the answer is that equation on the other side of that equal sign does not mean come here. There’s lots of things you could fill in there that would satisfy the moral duty, to the degree that we have one, of helping these people, and it doesn’t mean that they have to come here, especially if they’re not – one, especially if they’re actually not on our side. And this is the big thing that they just refuse to admit: A lot of these people will say anything that they can, but actively were playing both sides, actively helping the Taliban. They may have been helping us, but they were feeding information to the Taliban. And – because it’s not like the Taliban didn’t know the majority of these people in real time that were helping us. A lot of it they knew. And so one way to mitigate the damage to that if you’re helping us is to tell the Taliban whatever they want to know, and then you go to work to – (inaudible). Now, you may not be willing to blow up and do a, you know, green-on-blue attack, but yeah, here’s their coordinates, here’s their troop numbers, here’s what they’re doing. They leave the wire every day at 8:30. And a lot of this was they know my who my family are, so while I’m out doing this they know my family’s in this other region of the country, so if I don’t do this.
But you know, these are – this is a very complex situation, and they want to make it out as if every single person that’s coming over here is basically George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. And that’s just not the case.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Yeah. Basically, it’s they may not want to kill us, but they don’t mind if other people kill us in some sense.
MR. MILLER: That’s right.
MR. KRIKORIAN: So, the – I just wanted to – I mean, this is all speculative, and you guys don’t do legislative analysis and what have you. But there’s going to be a Democratic Congress, a very Democratic Congress, and they’re – in a sense it’s ironic if they were to promote the admission of more Afghans, because the only reason it’s happening is because their guy completely dropped the ball in Afghanistan before. But do you expect an even bigger push when the new Congress comes in to up the numbers?
MR. HANKINSON: I’ve seen some standalone bills, and I think those are much easier to highlight and explain some of these basic facts, that we really didn’t have 500,000 people who were critical to our mission there. But I think Wade’s right, what they’re going to do is stuff it into the NDAA and other, you know, massive bills where it’ll be a bargaining chip.
I just read a bill. I think it’s the worst bill I’ve ever read, by a congresswoman out of Illinois. It is, like, the absolute nightmare of anybody who wants this country to survive, let alone any immigration restrictionist. And I’m pretty sure the idea is, you know, let’s start with that, and then they’ll bargain down to a point where we just amnesty 25 million people. So I think it’ll be one of those things that they’ll stuff into a bill; and then it’ll be, well, you get that, we get that; and they’ll end up with this if they –
MR. KRIKORIAN: Interesting. Yeah, go ahead, Wade.
MR. MILLER: I do think NDAA is going to be a big threat. And, importantly, we can just not pass NDAA. Like, everything – the defense funding still goes on. We can actually just skip it for a year. I know that that’s not orthodoxy in D.C., but we – you could veto it and things would be functionally, for the most part, fine. So that’s a way to neuter the NDAA threat.
I think the bigger threat will be riders, adjustments on certain programs in the approps packages that Democrats push forward, in which case you’re definitely heading towards a shutdown fight on this issue. But again, to reiterate, you know, a lot of this will depend on what our side makes important in those fights, because if we are making something else one of the red lines then this is going to get lost in the fray.
MR. KRIKORIAN: And just slip through, kind of. So, two more questions, one specifically for you, Wade: Have you engaged with any of these veterans groups or individual veterans? You’re a combat veteran yourself, so you weren’t even just, like, working in the motor pool; you were actually in combat as a Marine in the Marine Corps. I mean, what’s the read you get from these people? How do you – how do they justify this when they talk –
MR. MILLER: It’s much emotionally manipulative browbeating. And, like, look, at the end of the day, I respect that they have strong emotions about someone that they perceive as having had their back in a very dangerous time of their lives. But my son’s safety doesn’t have to become secondary to their concerns about, you know, a 33- or 40-year-old Afghan national. We can do both. My son and all of our children and our families can have a safer society and not bringing in tens of thousands of unvetted people. And, also, it’s a big world. We can send a lot of these people to other parts of the world.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Saudi Arabia is a big empty place.
MR. HANKINSON: Well, there’s a lot of Stans other than Afghanistan.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Yeah, there’s a lot of Stans. Exactly. (Laughs.)
MR. HANKINSON: That could keep, I’m sure, motivated for certain –
MR. KRIKORIAN: Let me just point out, in Armenian, Armenia is Hayastan, so let’s not send them to that Stan. (Laughter.)
Just, anyway, we got a question here. I have another question. Actually, I wanted a broader one. But somebody’s asking about this 12,000, you know, SIV applications signed by a nonexistent CIA officer. Can’t they just all just sort of automatically all be rejected, right? In other words, why do we even – do we even have to go through all of those? You see what I mean?
MR. HANKINSON: Yeah. Well, it’s like so many things that those of us on the conservative side have been asking for the last two years. We have an administration that is very much in favor of immigration enforcement, trying to protect American jobs, trying to keep America safe. There are these things that seem like they could do that they don’t do. I don’t know if it’s bandwidth, they don’t have enough staff. But, yes, this would be something that they could do. They could say: You committed fraud, if a person hands over a letter that they know to be fraudulent from a person that doesn’t exist.
And just to go to Wade’s point, look, if an – if an American officer said this guy was in the field and he saved my life, I’m not going to gainsay that. Even if that guy ends up moving to Pennsylvania, that’s – you know, maybe I’d accept that risk, although I agree with you there are places they could go. But I don’t think that’s the case with these 500,000 people, and certainly not the people with the fake letter. There wasn’t a person who could go on the record and say: That’s my guy. I’ll back him. And that’s what I would want as an American, to know you vouched for him because he was with you, and you can say that he’s a safe, non-risk to bring to the United States.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right, right.
MR. MILLER: So I have pretty strong opinions on this, and I’d like to see a lot of various things done. The one thing that I will say, to pour a little bit of cold water on my perspective here, is that I do think that USCIS has great leadership, and one thing that our movement, I think, because we haven’t – especially our people, you know, our part of the movement specifically, hasn’t always been as much represented in previous Republican administrations. And then, of course, predating the Trump administration it was – had been quite a few years since we had people in. And so the movement writ large, I think, has lost a little bit of institutional understanding of how difficult it is to do things in the executive branch. So if you’re going to promulgate a rule, the process for doing that is so convoluted and difficult, and legal reviews and challenges and comment periods – it has to be out there for months and months and months, and you get it back, and then you have to change it. And every single one of those is certainly a bandwidth pathway, and you only have so many political appointed officials, and the bureaucracy, when it’s our side in charge, is never going to proactively move rules that we like, so it literally has to be driven by the political appointees. You have to make the bureaucrats do the work. When the Democrats are in charge, the bureaucracy will just hand-deliver these rule(s): Here’s a rule I wrote. You’ll love this. And just do it. That doesn’t happen to our side.
And so I do think that that they have to know about this. I trust that they are working towards this. But I do think it’s probably bandwidth, and it’s always good for us to double check, make phone calls – we all know different people in different areas of USCIS – and just, you know, see where they’re at on this. What can we do to help? Are there – are they coming up with rules that will help? Do we need to get our side to make comments in support of those rules? So –
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right. Thank you.
I just wanted to end on a kind of the broader issue that’s been brought up several times, and that is cultural vetting. And that applies beyond even just this issue of SIVs and the Afghans, because, as you described, Phil, we do vetting – OK, make sure you’re not a terrorist, make sure that whatever the, I think – I think we still have in there they check to make sure you weren’t a member of the Nazi Party before 1945, which I don’t know who that would be at this point. But there is more to it, as you pointed out. You know, there’s all kinds of people who – and they become – often become radicalized here – that just all they know is television, and then they come here and they said: Oh my God! Look, these women are walking around without their faces covered. This is an abomination. I have to go kill somebody. How do we screen people like – how do we vet people like that, or vet for that, or screen them out? I’m trying to – I’m confusing your two verbs here, Phil. But how do we make sure the people who come here – it’s not so much that they’ve read Thomas Paine, who, frankly, I’m not even a big fan of; the guy was an atheist.
MR. LINDERMAN: (Laughs.) Fair enough.
MR. KRIKORIAN: But to make sure that they’re people who aren’t going to be so repulsed by us that they’re going to actually do us harm and are likely to actually kind of make a life here in the United States without harming other people. Any thoughts? Please, yeah.
MR. MILLER: Can I just quickly say on this that there’s a whole list of questions you can ask. And you know, some I’ve seen very rationally respond: Well, you know, what about taqiyyah? Like, how do we know that they’re going to answer these questions accurately? And, look, the FBI actually does this quite well. They have multiple interviews with different family members, and they have ways of cross-checking and asking the same question different and detecting deception. So there are methods that can be employed in a vetting process to determine this.
And we do have lots of questions, like, you know, do you believe apostates should be punished, for one, in any way, shape, or form? And I happen to think that should be an automatic disqualifier for – with the exception of maybe extreme cases of actual threat, and they’re – the CIA might have great use for them. Fine. Like, we can handle a handful of people.
MR. KRIKORIAN: No, but I’m even talking about people with family immigration petitions, employment petitions, that sort of thing. Phil? I mean, Simon?
MR. HANKINSON: I’m feeling pretty cynical after last Tuesday. The answer is we don’t. We won’t. I mean, look at Hasan Piker. He’s got, what, 2, 3 million followers on Twitch or whatever.
MR. KRIKORIAN: He was born here, though, right?
MR. HANKINSON: Yeah, he was born here. But he says – and I can’t repeat the words because apparently you’re streaming it – but he is insulting of this country in a way that, you know, communist Chinese probably wouldn’t be. He acts like this is the absolute worst place on Earth. And we have Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, trying to remove people like Mahmoud Khalil who clearly are antithetical to our foreign policy, and people say: Well, how dare you? He’s an American as much as you are. So I do think ideologically, unfortunately, the DSA has captured the high ground in the Democratic Party, and right now – you don’t have to love America to be here. I don’t think that’s part of the game. You are allowed to come here.
MR. KRIKORIAN: That might even be a problem.
MR. HANKINSON: Yeah. You’re allowed to come here and want to rip it down and rebuild it into a socialist paradise on day one, and we’ve just elected a bunch of people like that to Congress. So that’s no longer a veto-worthy opinion.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Any last thoughts, Phil?
MR. LINDERMAN: Unfortunately, the U.S. government is not nimble enough to do – I don’t want to contradict Wade here – but in in a broad, systematic way is not nimble enough to do this. So we have accepted over decades now a system that basically brings people in from all sorts of backgrounds of alien cultures, and that’s why we have the moment we have in modern America.
Perhaps the better strategy is not to expect the nimbleness there, but to squeeze down the numbers as much as possible so that we don’t continue to have large-scale immigration into the country. We need to have a 1924 moment where we basically pause immigration, consolidate what we have in our country, and come to a new consensus about what it is, a new healthy consensus: What is it to be an American?
MR. MILLER: And maybe a bottleneck created by the system might be helpful in that direction.
MR. KRIKORIAN: So I think we’re going to end it there. We’ve had a good discussion here. I want to respect people’s time. Thank you, Simon Hankinson, Wade Miller, and Phil Linderman.
This is – if you came in late and didn’t see the beginning of it. This is going to be on at least our site. I assume you all may be hosting the video as well. So – and I want to thank Joe Abraham for speaking about the effect that the – that the failures of the – of what we’re talking about here have on actual families in the United States. And thanks to all of you who are in the audience and those of you who are on – watching online. So thank you, gentlemen. (Applause.)
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