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Gil Guerra /

What Does Afghan Vetting Actually Look Like?

The process is more complex than political soundbites suggest.
The 2021 fall of Kabul
A U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III safely transported approximately 640 Afghan citizens from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 15, 2021. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Every Afghan national seeking resettlement in the United States is supposed to be screened against at least seven federal databases, checked for biometric matches against 2.5 million records collected during combat operations in Afghanistan, and run through the FBI’s fingerprint identification system.

Gil Guerra is a contributing writer at The Dispatch and an immigration policy analyst at the Niskanen Center and the 2024 rising expert in Latin America with Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.

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