A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For more on the vetting process of Afghan nationals after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, I'm joined by Peter Bergen. He is the vice president of global studies and fellows at the liberal D.C. think tank New America. Bergen is also a CNN security analyst and a professor at Arizona State University. Peter, I want to start off with this clip from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MEET THE PRESS")
KRISTI NOEM: The Biden administration put people on airplanes, brought them to the United States without vetting them. They brought them into our country and then said they would vet them afterwards.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Peter, that's what the Trump administration keeps saying - that the shooting suspect was not properly vetted. Is that true?
PETER BERGEN: I find that highly unlikely. I mean, the problem here is not a vetting problem. The problem is what appears to be, according to reporting by The Associated Press, somebody who was having some really severe issues once he got into this country. And by the way, a typical Afghan who claims refugee status doesn't come to the United States. And everything that Kristi Noem said in that statement's mostly false, as far as I can tell.
MARTÍNEZ: So you're saying that someone - like, a refugee that did not work with the U.S. government in Afghanistan - they wouldn't go through that vetting process?
BERGEN: Yeah. I mean, anybody who is claiming refugee status from Afghanistan's going to go through a pretty rigorous vetting process. And often, by the way, it's not like they got on the plane in Kabul and arrived, you know, in the United States. They usually went to a country like Qatar and often stayed for years while their applications were being processed. So, you know, anybody claiming refugee status, particularly Afghans or Syrians, is going through a very, very rigorous vetting process. And the idea that somehow they just got on a plane, they arrived in the United States and that's it is untrue.
By the way, this alleged Afghan shooter applied officially for asylum. He would have gone through another set of vetting during the course of the asylum application, which, of course, was granted by the Trump administration early in 2025. And, you know, that process can take a long time. I've had Afghan friends who've waited 10 years just to get an application for a hearing because we have very few asylum judges and just a vast number of cases.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, as we heard, the Trump administration makes the claim that the alleged attacker was radicalized after coming to the U.S. We haven't seen any proof of that. But I'm wondering, Peter - is there a way to vet or predict the risk of radicalization?
BERGEN: Unless you have a machine that can look into men's souls, I think the short answer is no. You know, if somebody can be radicalizing and they kind of keep it to themselves - and by the way, when we see school shooters in this country or any kind of person who carries out some act of premeditated murder, you know, they often are fairly adept about keeping their plans to themselves, although they may say something that in retrospect becomes clearer to peers or family members. But there's no way to measure somebody becoming radical unless you can perhaps, you know, sort of survey what they're looking at on social media. And if they're, you know, reading a lot of ISIS websites, that would be an indication, but of course, you'd need a court order to do that.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, President Trump says he also wants to suspend all immigration from what he called, quote, "third-world countries" to let the U.S. system, quote, "recover." What would a suspension accomplish?
BERGEN: Well, no one would come. I mean, the other issue, I think, here is that if they're really going to re-interview people who are already here, that's just a massive, massive undertaking. I've seen, I think, 190,000 Afghans have come into the country since the fall - the - you know, the Taliban taking over in 2021. So who's going to do all that? As I mentioned earlier, there's a huge backlog already. There is a great need for asylum judges. There are very few of them, relatively speaking, and these hearings are already super backed up. So, I mean, the whole system is going to kind of grind to a halt, which may be, you know, kind of what the intent of all this is.
MARTÍNEZ: Peter Bergen, vice president of global studies and fellows at the liberal D.C. think tank New America, also a CNN security analyst. Peter, thank you very much for your time.
BERGEN: Thank you, sir. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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