WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) detailed the abject failures of the Biden administration’s parole programs, including Operation Allies Welcome, which allowed an Afghan citizen living in Fort Worth, Texas, who was recently charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for threatening to kill Americans as well as the shooter in last week’s ambush on two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., into the country. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“The man who committed this crime was a 29-year-old Afghan national by the name of Rahmanullah Lakanwal. The Biden administration paroled him into the United States in 2021, as part of Operation Allies Welcome. He was not the recipient of any Special Immigrant Visa.”

“Parole is a provision under the United States law that allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to allow certain aliens – and that would be foreigners – on a case-by-case basis.”

“This shooter was not admitted to the United States as a result of any legislation that Congress passed or any of us voted for. It was solely done by the Biden administration and by the Department of Homeland Security, during his administration.”  

“These sort of categorical paroles that the Biden administration issued, including the parole which resulted in this shooter being in Washington, D.C., and attacking these two National Guard members, was illegitimate.” 

“Now, what I’ve learned about this abuse of parole authority within Operation Allies Welcome, I raised the alarm bell. In October 2024, I co-led a letter, along with my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, back in the Biden administration.”  

“We sent this letter back in 2024 because of our concern that another foreign extremist might make their way into our country via this parole process and commit some act of violence, and it became increasingly clear during Thanksgiving week that our concerns were not unwarranted.”  

“We simply cannot ignore the importance of thoroughly vetting for each and every person who enters our country to make sure we’re keeping out radicals who may want to harm Americans, or criminals, or other people who have no business being in the United States in the first place.”  

“I commend President Trump for freezing processing of asylum and visa applications from Afghan nationals while we figure out what happened and figure out how to fix it.” 

“We have to get to the bottom of this in order to make sure that such a tragedy never happens again.”