The Department of Homeland Security arrested another Afghan evacuee Wednesday, accusing Jaan Shah Safi of supporting the terrorist group ISIS-K.
Mr. Safi was arrested in Waynesboro, Virginia.
The department said he came to the U.S. in September 2021, as part of tens of thousands of Afghans airlifted out of their home country by President Biden.
His arrest follows that of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan accused of slaying one National Guard soldier and wounding another near the White House, and Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, charged with saying he wanted to conduct a suicide bomb attack in Texas.
“The Biden administration created one of the worst national security crises in American history,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said.
All three men were part of the chaotic evacuation the Biden administration orchestrated as its troop pullout left Afghanistan vulnerable to a Taliban takeover in the summer of 2021.
Biden officials said their goal was to evacuate Afghans who had assisted the U.S. war effort. But the operation was plagued with problems, including Afghans with no connection to the U.S. gaining spots on planes and migrants not getting full vetting before reaching the U.S.
An inspector general earlier this year said the airlift allowed at least 82 people who had been on the terrorism watchlist to gain entry to the U.S.
That includes 55 who were already on the watchlist before the summer of 2021 or were placed there during the evacuation, and 27 more who weren’t added to the list until after settling in the U.S.
Other Afghan evacuees have had criminal entanglements.
Nasir Tawhedi, who also arrived in the 2021 airlift, has pleaded guilty to a role in a plot to carry out an Election Day shooting attack last year. Authorities disrupted the plan before the attack could be carried out.
Shah Mahmood Selab, another evacuee who arrived in November 2021, was convicted of coercion of a minor after authorities said he molested a 12-year-old boy at a public park in New Mexico in 2022.
