RIGHT SPEAK: Is Biden Bringing Terrorists From Afghanistan to America?

Is President Joe Biden bringing terrorists from Afghanistan to the United States?

The answer: Even Biden himself cannot know for sure.

The Biden administration is bringing two distinct types of evacuees into the U.S. from Afghanistan. Some hold Special Immigrant Visas. Others are so-called parolees.

In June, the Congressional Research Service published a report explaining Special Immigrant Visas.

“Congress has enacted a series of legislative provisions since 2006 to enable certain Iraqi and Afghan nationals to become U.S. lawful permanent residents,” said the Congressional Research Service. “These provisions make certain Iraqis and Afghans who worked as translators or interpreters, or who were employed by, or on behalf of, the U.S. government in Iraq or Afghanistan, eligible for Special Immigrant Visas.”

Allowing Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders to come to the U.S. is not only understandable; it is laudable. These are people who aided our country in its war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

But who is a parolee?

“The parole provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act,” the Congressional Research Service has reported, “gives the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security discretionary authority to ‘parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit any alien applying for admission to the United States.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

“Parole does not grant, nor entitle beneficiaries to later obtain, a lawful permanent resident status,” said the Congressional Research Service.

So, the Afghan parolees who have been coming into the United States since the fall of Kabul are not entitled to lawful permanent resident status here, but whom Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has decided to grant entry into our country.