EXCLUSIVE TO FOX: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have apprehended Jaan Shah Safi, an Afghan national suspected of supporting ISIS-K. Safi was brought into the United States as part of the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome and was taken into custody in Waynesboro, Virginia.
Safi’s arrest emerges amid a backdrop of increasing terrorism-related cases linked to Afghan individuals who entered the U.S. during President Biden’s tenure, a situation that former President Donald Trump and his administration have been addressing.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed on Wednesday that Safi entered the United States on September 8, 2021, landing in Philadelphia.
Safi had applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS); however, his application was revoked after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem decided to end TPS for Afghan nationals.
ICE confirmed on Wednesday that they had detained Jaan Shah Safi, identifying him as a suspected ISIS-K terrorist. (DHS)
ICE agents successfully executed the arrest of Safi on Wednesday.
“Today, our heroic ICE officers arrested Jaan Shah Safi, a terrorist who provided material support to ISIS-K,” Noem said in a news release. “The Biden administration brought this terrorist into the U.S. under the disastrous Operation Allies Welcome program. This terrorist was arrested miles from our nation’s capital, where our brave National Guard heroes, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe, were shot just days ago by another unvetted Afghan terrorist brought into our country.
“The Biden administration created one of the worst national security crises in American history. Biden let into our country nearly 190,000 unvetted Afghan aliens, only determining who they were and their intentions when they were already on American soil,” she continued. “President Trump has been working every day since Jan. 20 to clean up this unmitigated national security crisis.”
Refugees from Afghanistan are escorted to a waiting bus after arriving and being processed at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., Aug. 23, 2021. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images)
The DHS accused the Biden administration of relying on unvetted referrals to admit nearly 190,000 Afghan nationals into the U.S.
The Trump administration put a stop to Afghan refugee resettlement after Trump returned to the Oval Office in January because it saw the program as a massive threat to national security.
Safi’s arrest marks the third of an Afghan national who was released into the country under Biden in less than a week, according to DHS.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., Nov. 26. (Provided by Department of Justice)
On Nov. 26, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was also released into the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome, allegedly committed a terror and ambush-style attack on two National Guard members, killing one, just blocks from the White House.
On Nov. 25, just a day before the attack, Mohammad Dawood Alokozay was arrested by local authorities and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force after allegedly making bomb threats in Fort Worth, Texas.
Alokozay allegedly posted a video of himself on TikTok indicating he was building a bomb, DHS said, and his intended target was the Fort Worth area.
Alokozay, who was also released into the U.S. under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome, has been charged with making terroristic threats.
