Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assured Thursday the growing effort to combat domestic terrorism and the mass influx of Afghan refugees will not distract the agency from its ongoing efforts to guard against attacks from international terrorism.
Speaking at the National Press Club two days shy of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Mayorkas emphasized the evolution of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a focus on the threat from overseas actors, to radicalized individuals inside the U.S., to what he called “domestic violence extremists.” But, he insisted, even as the agency, which was created in response to the 9/11 attacks, has changed with the evolving threats to the homeland it has not lost sight of the continuing possibility of a foreign-based attack.
“We remain focused on foreign threats and we remain focused on home-grown violent extremism,” said the DHS secretary.
Twenty years after the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Mayorkas said the systems and manpower developed in response will continue to keep the homeland safe. Those systems have allowed U.S. authorities to better screen people coming into the country, coordinate the multitude of agencies involved in the effort and to monitor them for potentially dangerous activity, he said. “We never dismantled or weakened the systems that we built then,” he stated. “Our goal is to be ready for what is yet to come.”
Those systems will be in effect as DHS leads Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden Administration’s effort to resettle tens of thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing the end of U.S. involvement in their home country’s war. He said DHS has “surged” its manpower into foreign stopovers for Afghan refugees headed to the U.S. with 400 new personnel and provided additional equipment, which has allowed to improve the vetting process. Each Afghan will be vetted biographically and biometrically with fingerprints, the Secretary said. That information will be used to detect any possible terrorist connections or other unwanted individuals, he added.
Vaccination against COVID-19 will be required for all Afghans prior to admittance to the U.S. for resettlement, he noted.
Mayorkas said he is unaware of any Afghan refugees admitted to the U.S. who have connections to ISIS, as has been reported in some media in recent days. “We have no information that ISIS has slipped in with Afghan refugees,” he added.
So far, Americans of all political persuasions have shown “an extraordinary outpouring of generosity,” in welcoming Afghan refugees, he noted of the early response to the influx of refugees. It has not been unanimous, but has been a united effort, he stressed.
The DHS Secretary said the Biden Administration has also committed to reuniting the families from central and south America who were separated while seeking refuge at the southern border. “It is our top priority to reunite those families,” he said, noting the administration has created a task force for just such a purpose and has shut down two holding facilities where abuses of children have been documented. So far, the efforts have resulted in the reunification of “tens of tens of families,” he stated.
Part of the effort includes changing the mindset of addressing potential immigrants, he said. So, the administration will no longer refer to “illegal aliens,” and will instead call these individuals “non-citizens.”
“No longer will the U.S. government accept substandard treatment and failures to respect the dignity of migrants,” he said. “We plan to reestablish the security of our values, as well as the security of our homeland.”