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When the FBI arrested Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi this week, it was coy in explaining why the Afghan man, now accused of plotting to martyr himself in an Election Day mass shooting, was free in the U.S. in the first place.
What authorities have said, however, raises questions about why Mr. Tawhedi was set free and able to be radicalized by the Islamic State or ISIS.
The FBI said in court documents that Mr. Tawhedi came to the U.S. on Sept. 9, 2021, just days after the Biden administration completed the troop withdrawal that led to the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban’s full takeover. Special Agent Nathan Wilkins said he arrived here “on a special immigrant visa and is currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings.”
Immigration experts said that’s a confusing mix of events that suggests there was something suspicious in his history.
“They’re being deliberately evasive,” said Matthew O’Brien, who led the national security division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and is now research director at the Immigration Reform Law Institute.
Mr. Tawhedi stands accused of trying to buy two AK-47 rifles as part of a plan to conduct a mass killing on Election Day next month. He planned to carry out the attack with a nephew, who wasn’t named in court documents, while sending the rest of his extended family back to Afghanistan several weeks before the attack.
Agents probed his iPhone and online activities and found mountains of evidence of his allegiance to ISIS.
Among those were sharing information about an ISIS recruiter, donations to a charity that the FBI said “fronts for and funnels money to ISIS” and a video of Mr. Tawhedi reading about martyrdom to his 1-year-old daughter and a nephew.
The FBI arranged to sell weapons to Mr. Tawhedi as proof he was serious in his attempt to conduct the Election Day terror attack.
Authorities were less forthcoming on what earned him a right to enter the U.S. and be released into the community.
His arrival on Sept. 9, 2021, suggests that he was part of the chaotic evacuation run by the Biden administration, which flew some 76,000 Afghans out of the country and put them on a path to resettle in the U.S. Some had been granted the Special Immigrant Visa, reserved for those who assisted the U.S. war effort and faced retaliation from the Taliban.
But experts said at least half had no such ties and instead were regular Kabul residents lucky enough to be able to get through the Taliban cordon around the Kabul airport. Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas granted them “parole,” a special exception to the immigration process that allows unauthorized migrants to enter despite being deemed inadmissible.
The FBI, though, described Mr. Tawhedi as having both statuses — and being in immigration proceedings, which suggests he is fighting a deportation case.
Mr. O’Brien said his best guess was that Mr. Tawhedi had been approved for the special visa, but when he arrived at a U.S. airport, the Customs and Border Protection officer spotted something troubling in the records and flagged him.
Unwilling to return him to Afghanistan, the government allowed him in through parole while trying to sort through the flags.
Andrew “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge who led the National Security Law Division at the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the mistake was letting him — and other Afghan evacuees — be released into the U.S. without full vetting.
“If there are any concerns about this individual, he should never have left custody, and quite frankly, it looks like there were concerns,” he said. “I don’t know what they were, but he should have never left custody until they were resolved.”
Mr. Arthur said the “vast majority” of the evacuees didn’t pose a risk, but until the government could sort through who did, they should have found ways to keep them from being released.
Asked to clarify Mr. Tawhedi’s path to the U.S., the agencies pointed fingers at each other.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was a matter for the FBI. The FBI said to talk to Homeland Security. Homeland Security said it was a matter for the Justice Department, which oversees deportation cases. The Justice Department didn’t respond to an inquiry.
Mr. Mayorkas was prodded by a reporter Thursday about the case but refused to talk about it, saying he wanted to focus on hurricane relief efforts.
“I would be pleased to discuss this issue at a different time but I am here to speak about disasters that have impacted people’s lives in real-time and that is a subject that I am addressing today,” Mr. Mayorkas said.
Mr. Tawhedi is being held pending a detention hearing next week.
The Washington Times has sought comment from his lawyer.
Homeland Security wouldn’t discuss Mr. Tawhedi’s case but said it conducted “multi-layered screening and vetting” of the Afghans who were brought in.
“If new information emerges after arrival, appropriate action is taken,” the department said in a statement.
The department’s inspector general has challenged the government’s vetting. In a 2022 report, auditors said the government didn’t check all the databases it should have when verifying Afghans’ status. Afghans also gave misleading information about their names and birth dates, further frustrating efforts to check their identities.
Indeed, some Afghans said they didn’t know their birthday and guessed at their age, leaving the government to assign a birthday of Jan. 1 of some approximate year in their new U.S. file.
Mr. Arthur said the Tawhedi case should pump the brakes on congressional efforts to grant permanent legal status to Afghans here under Mr. Mayorkas’ parole powers.
The House Homeland Security Committee this week announced a probe into Mr. Tawhedi and his unnamed co-conspirator, the juvenile nephew who also came to the U.S. on the special immigrant visa in 2018. That likely means he derived that status from a parent who worked with U.S. forces. The nephew has since gained permanent legal status.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have called the Tawhedi case a warning.
“The No. 1 job of our government is to protect its citizens,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican. “By hiding behind clerical excuses, refusing to take accountability and neglecting to address known vulnerabilities in vetting and resettlement processes, the Biden-Harris administration failed to prioritize Americans’ safety and, once again, projected weakness on the global stage.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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