WASHINGTON — Senators from two subcommittees Wednesday disagreed on the effectiveness of former president Joe Biden’s Afghan parolee program and whether it contributed to a November shooting of two National Guard members in Washington D.C.
The alleged shooter, Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, entered the U.S. through Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome program. He has been charged with killing Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and injuring Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.
The shooting shook up Washington and Wednesday’s hearing gave senators a chance to avoid a repeat of violence. Yet senators from both sides of the aisle differed on the causes of the shooting and what steps to take moving forward.
Republicans blamed Biden’s program for having insufficient vetting process for parolees and creating a public safety problem.
“The Biden Administration did, at best, half-assed vetting,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said.
Democrats, however, defended the program and said the shooting was caused by a lack of mental health and relocation resources.
“Mental health is not an Afghan problem, it’s an American problem,” said Sen. Blumenthal, D-Conn.
Under the parolee program, over 190,000 Afghan nationals received humanitarian parole since 2021 which allowed them to legally stay in the U.S., according to a 2026 report by the U.S. State Department.
“Under Operation Allies Welcome, President Biden essentially gave an easy pass to hundreds of thousands of aliens who otherwise were not eligible to come,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chair of one of two subcommittees that hosted the hearing.
Parole is a form of entry specifically for people who otherwise might be inadmissible in the U.S., and was only supposed to be used on a case by case basis, Cornyn said.
Craig Adelman, Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Audits Deputy Inspector, said there was not a formal screening and process at the start of Biden’s parolee program. DHS ran the biographical and geographical information of Afghans until December 2021 when in-person interviews were required, he said.
Close to 12,000 parolees did not have or know their dates of birth, and around 36,000 could not show formal identification at points of entry, Adelman said.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif, the top Democrat of one of the subcommittees, said every refugee had to complete multiple rounds of extensive vetting, both before and after arriving in the U.S. and that last year’s shooting was not a result of procedural gaps. Instead he blamed the Trump administration’s budget cuts and focus on deportations for depleting intelligence resources.
“It was a failure of counterterrorism with professionals diverted from their critical missions to instead carry out mass deportations,” Padilla said. “It failed to support a veteran by holding back resources that normally supports the settlement process.”
Senators also heard from veterans who discussed their experience with the Afghan evacuation. Veteran and hearing witness Lt. Col. Perry Blackburn said the person who perpetuated the shooting last year does not represent the Afghan people he served alongside.
“Conflating lawful allies with violent criminals dishonors fallen soldiers and the Afghans that have kept faith with us,” Blackburn said.