We are told there are about 53,000 Afghan “guests”–otherwise known as “humanitarian parolees”–being housed at eight military bases spread around the U.S. and awaiting resettlement.
At the bases, our guests are being waited on day and night by military personnel and showered with such benefits as “culturally appropriate meals, including 24/7 grab-and-go options and enjoying recreational, classroom” and other activities. It’s kind of like enjoying an all-expense-paid summer camp, while even more bennies are being prepared for you when you eventually undertake your new life in America. Even so, some are apparently either becoming impatient or perhaps growing wary of being found out, and are simply walking away. No one knows where.
There’s nothing to stop these “independent departures,” of course, more than 700 of which have already been noted. They are breaking no laws in doing so (though we fail to see how that would matter these days) and military commanders have no authority to prevent them from leaving.
The commanders’ primary concern, as it turns out, is that by going AWOL, the guests will miss out on all the goodies Uncle Sam has planned for them after summer camp is over–benefits such as expedited work permits and driver’s licenses, housing assistance, cash assistance, medical assistance, travel assistance, food stamps, employment preparation, job placement, English language training, you name it–and those benefits can last up to five years and beyond. Such a deal.
The evacuees have been told if they leave before processing, they will not be allowed to return and will forfeit all those benefits. (Though DHS Secretary Mayorkas has been quick to promise them they will not be deported–no, not ever!)
Why would these pampered and pandered-to people willingly give up all the cash and bennies? Columnist Daniel Greenfield offers three possibilities:
(1) They’re not legally who they say they are and are worried that the authorities will find out. (2) They’re committing a crime such as trafficking young girls as had already been reported at Fort McCoy. (3) They’re terrorists here to infiltrate America. Pick one and you’ll probably be at least partially right.
Authorities pooh-pooh the possibility that crime is a factor, citing figures that show the numbers of incidents involving robbery and theft in the camps have been “substantially lower than in the general U.S. population.” (Figures on the trafficking of young girls apparently being unavailable.) They also assure us that these parolees–who by definition were not of assistance to the U.S. in Afghanistan and do not qualify for genuine refugee status–were thoroughly vetted and certified security-risk-free before landing here.
Nevertheless, there are those who wonder if the rushed evacuation of 130,000 Afghanis in August might have missed a jihadi or two. As an unnamed official flatly told the Daily Mail: “The reality is, overseas the vetting process sucks. There’s minimal vetting.”
Afghanistan “is a dangerous part of the world,” said South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem in August when she declined to allow refugees to be resettled in her state. “We know that we have a lot of dangerous people there that want to do the United States harm.”
Maybe, just maybe, some of them are no longer there but here. Somewhere.
For more, see the Daily Mail.