In his first interview since taking office, US Vice President JD Vance on Saturday defended President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders, and his suspension of the refugee program.
Speaking to CBS on Sunday night, Vance dismissed concerns that the White House was not prioritizing US economic fears, and argued that suspending the nation’s refugee admissions program was justified.
Hours after taking office on Jan. 20, Trump suspended the US Refugee Admissions Program, leaving thousands of Afghans stranded at airports, some of whom had worked with the US prior to its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Vance previously told CBS in August that he did not think Washington should abandon people who have “been properly vetted and actually helped us.”
The refugee program is an 18- to 24-month process that involves interviews, medical screenings and security vetting.
Refugee applicants must prove they are fleeing persecution before being allowed into the US.
Vance on Saturday seemed to reverse course, questioning whether the program had “properly vetted” the refugees.
“Now that we know that we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs, we absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country,” Vance declared, without detailing how the refugee program’s vetting process may be faulty.
He provided the example of an Afghan national who came to the US immediately after the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The man was arrested in Oklahoma in October on federal charges of planning an election day terrorist attack in support of the Islamic State (Daesh).
“He was allegedly properly vetted, and many people in the media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted,” Vance claimed of the suspect. “Clearly, he wasn’t.”
However, CBS News reported at the time that the suspect did not arrive via the refugee process. Instead, he was paroled into the country, like most Afghan evacuees, and allowed to live in the country temporarily under that immigration authority while he applied for a Special Immigrant Visa.
Afghans pulled from flights
Over 1,500 Afghans cleared by the US government to resettle in the US, including family members of active-duty US military personnel, have had their flights canceled under Trump’s order.
The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the US as well as Afghans who fought for the former US-backed Afghan government, said Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of US veterans and advocacy groups and a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US decision also leaves in limbo thousands of other Afghans who have been approved for resettlement as refugees in the US but have not yet been assigned flights from Afghanistan or from neighboring Pakistan, they said.
“Afghans and advocates are panicking,” said VanDiver.
VanDiver’s organization is the main coalition that has been working with the US government to evacuate and resettle Afghans in America.
