The United States must overhaul its vetting system for immigrants and asylum seekers, as the current process implemented under the Biden administration has left the country vulnerable to security threats, says Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
"We think up to 100,000 people came in under Operation Allies that may be here that we don't know necessarily who they are or why they came to this country — if they came here maybe for asylum or if they were someone who had nefarious ideas on how to attack Americans or to undermine our way of life," Noem said Monday during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."
The suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members last week, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national, entered the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Welcome after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He was granted asylum earlier this year by the Trump administration.
Noem argued that the federal government must shift its focus to pre-entry screening rather than scrambling to assess individuals once they are already inside the country.
"What I would say on the vetting process is that it has to happen before they ever come here," she said.
"They have to be vetted before we allow them to get on a plane and come to the United States of America so that we know what their intentions are and who they are," she added.
According to Noem, effective vetting requires cooperation from foreign governments willing to share records, biometric data, and service histories — cooperation she says was lacking during the Biden administration's handling of Afghan arrivals.
"They did a vetting process, but it wasn't thorough," she added. "They didn't look at social media platforms... changes that President Trump is implementing."
Noem also highlighted the enormous backlog in asylum cases she inherited, saying, "There was a 1.5 million-case backlog in asylum claims that the Biden administration hadn't even looked at yet, hadn't even dealt with their paperwork or processed it."
She noted that the Trump administration has since expanded recruitment at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, resulting in "tens of thousands of people" applying to become "homeland defenders" committed to tightening immigration controls.
Noem backed President Donald Trump's directive to pause asylum processing entirely until the system can be rebuilt.
"President Trump is absolutely correct to stop all asylum, stop all paperwork, all processing… until we know what we're doing, who we're letting into this country, and to make sure that they're properly vetted."
Under former President Joe Biden, she said, the system "completely failed.
"And we're not going to operate that way anymore."
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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