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EXCLUSIVE: Afghan evacuees with rap sheets that include convictions for sexual battery and lewd acts with a minor and arrests for alleged child-fondling and terror-group support were among the “worst of the worst” recently swept up by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS released the list days after one former Afghan evacuee allegedly shot two West Virginia National Guard members, killing one, and another was charged in a Newark, Del., terror plot. The agency says the arrests reveal explosive failures in the 2021 vetting system that rushed evacuees into the country after Kabul fell.
Biden administration officials insisted their 2021 Operation Allies Welcome vetting was sound, but a senior DHS official said the president’s “trust without verification” approach to evacuee backgrounds helped drive the recent surge in attacks and plots.
“Under Secretary Noem, DHS has been going full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and criminal illegal aliens that came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “When Joe Biden let 190,000 Afghan nationals in, they didn’t do criminal background checks, vet social media, someone just vouched for them, and they took the words as truth.”
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DHS has captured sexual predators, terror suspects, pedophiles and other violent “unvetted” foreigners in their persistent daily work of executing President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement orders, the agency added in a statement.
Not all of the arrests have involved Afghan evacuees. ICE arrests have included Iraqi “criminal illegal alien” Ziaulhaq Faqiri, who entered the U.S. as a “special immigrant Iraqi employee” during former President Joe Biden’s term. Faqiri’s criminal history includes convictions for “carnal abuse” and sexual assault.
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But many arrests have involved those who came to America in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
One of the evacuees from Operation Allies Refuge – the mass exodus upon the immediate fall of Kabul often involving third-party countries, versus “Allies Welcome,” the process that utilized domestic military bases as housing – was arrested recently as a “criminal alien” residing in the U.S.
Qesmat Din Zafran was apprehended around the fourth anniversary of the 2021 Afghan withdrawal and has convictions for lewd and lascivious acts with a minor.
Other recent captures include the October arrest of Operation Allies Refuge participant Mansour Walizada, who has convictions for sexual battery and an arrest for child fondling, according to DHS.
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Mohammad Tabesh Rasoli was recently arrested by ICE, which found him to have a conviction for hit-and-run. The case involved Rasoli seriously injuring a pedestrian he struck while driving 50 miles per hour, the agency said.
Iowa authorities honored a request to transfer another Afghanistan evacuee: Javid Ghamgeen.
Ghamgheen had been convicted of two meth-possession counts, as well as burglary and assault on a public officer.
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Two others arrested after coming to the U.S. following the American withdrawal were Asirullah Khalid-Khan and Said Mohammad Tanai.
Tanai had a prior conviction for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, while Khalid-Khan’s record included sexual assault and kidnapping.
In yet another incident, an Afghan evacuee was arrested in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley on allegations he provided support to the Khorosan Group, also known as ISIS-K.
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Jaan Shah Safi was arrested on Wednesday in Waynesboro – just outside Staunton.
DHS officials said Safi’s father is currently a commander of an Afghan militia group.
Safi was brought to Philadelphia about one week after the Afghanistan evacuation commenced and applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) – but saw it terminated by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this year.
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Officials said Safi was the third Afghan terror suspect arrested in “recent days” who was brought to the U.S. during the Biden-era operations.
Meanwhile, a Mideast-born student at Biden’s alma mater was arrested in Delaware on Wednesday after police conducted a traffic stop near Newport.
Police encountered 25-year-old University of Delaware student Luqmaan Khan with a Glock handgun, multiple magazines, a ballistic-armored plate and a notebook that included handwritten descriptions of how the weapons could be used in an attack.
The book also included the name of a University of Delaware police officer, the layout of a university building and the words “UD Police Department.”
Pakistan’s foreign office disputed reports Thursday that Khan was of “Pakistani-origin,” with spokesman Tahir Andrabi telling Arab News that Islamabad’s investigation of the situation found Khan to instead be an Afghan national who fled to Pakistan with his family as a refugee.
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Biden graduated from UDel in 1965 with a double-major in history and political science before heading to Syracuse for law school.
Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
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