SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The man who allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington on Wednesday is in custody. A 29-year-old Afghan man, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has been identified by authorities as the alleged shooter. According to law enforcement, he drove across the country from Washington state to carry out the shootings. Lakanwal previously served in one of Afghanistan's elite counterterrorism units operated by the CIA. After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, Lakanwal came to the U.S. in a Biden-era evacuation effort called Operation Allies Welcome, which processed tens of thousands of applications by Afghan evacuees. Lakanwal was granted asylum under the Trump administration earlier this year.
Now, in response to the shooting, the Trump White House announced an immediate pause on immigration applications filed by Afghan nationals, and the president said that all Afghan immigration that was processed during the Biden administration should be reexamined. Haris Tarin is the vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and he served as the chief of staff for Operation Allies Welcome. He joins us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
HARIS TARIN: Thank you for having me, Scott.
DETROW: I want to start with your reaction to two aspects of this news. First, what you've been thinking and feeling since you learned that this alleged shooter is somebody who came to the U.S. through Operation Allies Welcome.
TARIN: Well, first, our hearts go out to the two members of the National Guard and their families. And this tragedy struck the heart of our nation's capital. When I found out that this individual was an Afghan national - my parents came to this country from Afghanistan in the 1980s, and so to feel that someone who shares an identity, who would do something this tragic really was immense amount of pain.
DETROW: Yeah.
TARIN: For me, it really struck personally and deeply.
DETROW: President Trump quickly tied this to the way that this individual came into this country and, as we noted, has decided to pause all Afghan immigration applications. What's your response to that?
TARIN: This individual came to the U.S. under the Biden administration, but his asylum application was approved in the Trump administration. So that means he went through multiple layers of security and security checks.
DETROW: Can you - since this is going to be in the news so much in the coming days - from your vantage point, from your understanding, can you explain kind of what those levels of security check look like?
TARIN: Well, there's multiple levels. The fact that he worked with the - with an intelligence agency, they would, of course, do a very thorough check in Afghanistan because he was working with them. That would include, of course, background checks. That would include mental health screenings and lie detectors and so many different aspects when you work with parts of the intelligence communities. So there's multiple layers that this individual has gone through.
DETROW: I want to talk about Operation Allies Welcome, though, because it's being scrutinized again. And there really was, from many different angles, widespread criticism of this effort, that it was chaotic, poorly organized, that many people were left behind. And, you know, then there were more recent Department of Justice reports, among other things, saying that the vetting was not up to the usual protocol. How much of that, in your perspective, is fair?
TARIN: Operation Allies Welcome was being created as this tragedy of the fall of Kabul. While that was happening, this operation was being set up. So there's fair criticism to say we left people who were legitimately needed to come to this country behind. But when it comes to the security component of this, I can tell you from personal and firsthand experience that multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies were involved in the security process. That was the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security.
So there's fair criticism, but to completely undermine the whole operation - you know, these are individuals, Scott who served alongside our service members. They risked their lives. And so we have to be fair in how we critique the operation and make sure that we're not blanketly blaming all Afghans who deserve a place where they can be safe and have security.
DETROW: Given your confidence in the vetting and security part of this, what is your response to President Trump saying he wants to reexamine the security vetting for people who were let into the country? Do you find that to be productive in any way at all?
TARIN: It's fair to continue to have scrutiny and security checks. A blanket denial of immigration status would be counterproductive because we would be leaving 200,000 or more individuals in limbo.
DETROW: Can you just clarify that number? Is that people already in the U.S.?
TARIN: Close to about 200,000 people are already in the U.S.
DETROW: Got it. What do you think the most productive way forward is in this moment? What would you like to see happen in the coming weeks?
TARIN: What I'd like for us to do is to ignore the bigotry, the hate and those individuals on X and on social media who will try to manipulate this tragedy and make it about immigrants and make it about Afghan Americans, American Muslims and others who have served this country and dedicated their lives to this country. And so I would want us to make sure that we're empowering our professionals in the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and not the bigots who are trying to take advantage of this moment.
DETROW: That's Haris Tarin, vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Thank you so much for talking to us.
TARIN: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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