In the week since an Afghan man shot two National Guard members, killing one, AfghanEvac founder Shawn VanDiver has been on a mission to preclude the “heinous” actions of one man from representing an entire group of immigrants and asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has halted asylum requests for people from Afghanistan. VanDiver joined Politically Speaking this week to discuss how infrastructure meant to vet and resettle Afghans who supported U.S. troops has been dismantled over several months. A transcript of the full interview is below.
Safchik: VanDiver joins us now to discuss the headlines of the past few days and how infrastructure supporting U.S. allies from overseas has really been dismantled over the past many months, right?
VanDiver: That’s right. Look. Starting when, first of all, thank you so much for having me on today.
Safchik: Thank you for being here.
VanDiver: You’ve done such an extraordinary job of covering these stories, in a way that even the national news isn’t getting, and I just really appreciate it. Look, on day one of President Trump’s administration, they shut down refugee admissions. They shut down the relocation infrastructure that AfghanEvac had built with the Biden administration that was resulting in 5000 Afghans a month coming to third countries and then onto the United States every single month, 28 flights a month. We were keeping the promise to our wartime allies for the very first time in our history, and then we had to establish a diaper underground railroad, because on day one of President Trump’s administration, because their foreign aid pause meant that the contractors on the sites in Qatar couldn’t distribute diapers to moms. It was insane. So then you fast forward to June of this year and President Trump implemented his travel ban, 19 different countries, full or partial bans. Afghanistan was on that list. And what that meant is that most people from Afghanistan, people with Afghan passports, could not come to the United States, with the exception of the Special Immigrant Visa program and some family members of U.S. citizens. But they interpreted the travel ban to mean that families couldn’t be reunified. There were a bunch of people that we brought here during the withdrawal under Operation Allies welcome, which I’m sure we’ll talk about later. But many of their families were separated from them. So we had implemented a program where they could be reunified through follow to join asylum. President Trump interpreted that, the State Department interpreted President Trump’s travel ban as a stop on all that. And then things were still rapidly happening the Friday before the shooting. We saw USCIS issue a policy that they would reinvestigate all green card holders that had come in, or, I’m sorry, all refugees that had come in since the Biden administration, including green card holders. Every single refugee that was admitted during the Biden administration. And what hasn’t been reported, but we know to be true, is in the weeks before the shooting, USCIS had placed an adjudication hold on all, all applicants from the 19 travel ban countries. All that amounts to nearly every single pathway already having been stopped before this shooting. And then this tragic shooting occurred with two of our brave National Guardsmen. Two service members were gunned down by an Afghan man in Washington, D.C., who is from Washington state. He had been brought here, by the US government and had never gotten permanent status. He had achieved. The Trump administration gave him chief of mission approval and asylum, but he hadn’t yet gotten a green card. And, you know, we’ve heard that the vetting was broken. That’s not true. We’ve heard that, we’ve heard all sorts of things, that he was radicalized. All that we’ve seen in the news so far amounts to a man who is struggling with PTSD, like any number of our own veterans, too.
Safchik: I want to ask you, you said the Trump administration was using the National Guard shooting as a political cudgel. What do you mean by that?
VanDiver: Look, there’s no other way to say it. Look, as a veteran, I’m really upset because we should be able to trust the things coming from government podiums, but there’s no other way to say it. And I’m going to say it directly to your viewers. President Trump is a liar. Secretary Kristi Noem is a liar. FBI Director Kash Patel is a liar. Vice President Vance is a liar. Attorney General Pam Bondi is a liar. These people are lying to you over and over from the podium to further their political goals, which is unconscionable. And we shouldn’t have to stand for that. You have been going on international news making that case for the last couple of days.
Safchik: Are you worried about retaliatory action or are you worried about those strong words not helping your case?
VanDiver: Well, we’ve been trying to work with them since day one of the administration, and what they’ve told us is, expletives that we are not allowed to air on this family, family network. But I’ll tell you, we’ve been sending them letters, asking for them to consider things since before the administration. We’ve offered our help. AfghanEvac is a nonpartisan organization. We want to work with the government. We are at our best when the government and civil society are working together. And this administration has shown day in and day out that they don’t want to help Afghans. They want to harm Afghans. And if our Afghan wartime allies can’t get help, other immigrant populations are in a world of hurt.
Safchik: Let’s stay on the National Guard shooting for just a moment. You’ve said that their response to this heinous crime is disproportionate. What should the response look like?
VanDiver: Well, instead of making up lies about the vetting not working, we know that the vetting works. The Trump administration vetted these folks. So did the Biden administration. They were vetted. He was vetted over and over and over again. It’s not the vetting that was broken. It’s how we take care of the people who fight our wars. This man, at age 15, was given firearms and training on how to be a lethal weapon for the United States. He went out and fought. Or worse, he killed people in our name for almost ten years, just like our veterans, so many of whom live here in San Diego. He struggled with the unseen wounds of war. A lot of people tried to get him help. He refused it. And then he asked for help from the CIA. And it sounds like what I’ve heard from the Rolling Stone report is that the group chat got deleted. It’s really unfortunate. And this man has to be held to the full count, to be accountable to the full extent of the law. And we didn’t try to throw all the veterans out when this last September, two veterans in two different states, 13 hours apart, committed mass shootings because that would be the wrong thing to do. What we need to do is hold them accountable for their actions, and then do a better job of funding the back end of war so that we take care of the people who fight our wars in an appropriate manner. And the other thing that we’re not talking about is the Trump administration, through DOJ’s and through realignment of resources, fundamentally destroyed the domestic security programs meant to keep us safe. The Countering Violent Extremism program, the, the targeted violence, Preventing Terrorism program, TVP, our Targeted Violence and threat prevention program. There’s a behavioral threat program. There’s all these domestic security programs that were destroyed. And then President Trump defunded. Through both the four day pause and the one big beautiful bill, Snap benefits mental health services. Mental health services ended for refugees on September 30th of this year. We’ve got to give these folks the support that they need.
Safchik: Let’s talk about vetting. President Trump has accused the Biden administration of not adequately vetting people they were resettling after the withdrawal of Afghan from Afghanistan.
What did that vetting process look like in reality?
VanDiver: Sure. So that’s another lie. It will shock you to learn that President Trump is lying about this. People were vetted before they left the Kabul airport. There were a few people that slipped through, but they didn’t come here. They went to a third country because they knew that they needed to do more thorough vetting. Right. So they went to Germany. They went to the UAE. They went to Qatar. They went to a few other places. They underwent strict vetting. Everybody got vetted before they left those sites. Anybody who couldn’t pass vetting didn’t get sent back to Kosovo for more thorough vetting to just make sure everything was tight. And then from there, if they couldn’t pass, they got sent back or they got sent somewhere else. People who made it here and later had something pop up because we have ongoing vetting first to make it here, you have to get vetted again while you’re in the air. And then when you arrive at the port by CBP, then while you’re here, you’re undergoing consistent vetting over and over and over again all the time. If something pops up, those people get removed from the country. Biden deported some people because they popped up on vetting later on. And then when they sought permanent status, this guy applied for Special Immigrant Visa status in August of 2022. He applied for asylum in December of 2024, and he got both chief of mission approval and asylum approval in April of 2025 under the Trump administration.
Safchik: A report from the inspector general back in 2022 did find that, quote, some information used to vet evacuees through U.S. government databases was inaccurate, incomplete or missing. What could happen to strengthen that process? It does feel kind of opaque at times. Complicated. Maybe it should be right. But what should the American people know to feel secure?
VanDiver: Well, I’ll tell them. I would tell the American people that, good news. All of that stuff that was discovered by the OIG and by the the agencies was remedied in enduring welcome, and remedied in further vetting, the continuous vetting that was happening, which is why sometimes things would pop up. So they started using AI and lots of other tools and, and resources. And the vetting was ongoing. Right. So we saw that that actually got a lot better. And, in June of 2025, Cosper tells the FBI released an OIG report that said that the FBI did everything that they were supposed to do and that anything that was found to be faulty in vetting was addressed and the systems were working. There were no systemic errors. Now, according to very recent reporting from the New York Times, the Trump administration is prioritizing the deportation of Afghans who were previously ordered out of the country. Does not have the potential to include war time allies. It sure does. Right. These are folks. The folks that are really in danger are not the folks who came through Enduring Welcome. They arrived on a durable status. The people who are really in danger here are the folks that the United States government brought here during the evacuation, at the behest and their great urging of Republicans and Democrats, including Congressman Issa, who’s right here in San Diego, who told me personally that he was going to oversee the biggest mass deportation in history just months after that. But the people that came here on Enduring Welcome. They’re durable. They’re safe. People who arrived are on us planes. They’re in danger. And the people who came through the southern border are in danger. Anybody who is here on a temporary status parole or TPS or had those that is now been stripped out and so they are in danger of being removed. Congress has to act on this. The Congress and or the courts have to act on this because the administration isn’t going to do anything to help Afghans. They haven’t done a single thing to help Afghans, and they’re going to keep screwing these people.
Safchik: What message does that send to potential wartime allies across the world?
VanDiver: Well, it seems like, Secretary Hegseth and President Trump are trying to go to war in Venezuela right now, and I don’t know how we’re going to get help or intelligence assets from the Venezuelan people. They’re going to look at what we’ve done to Afghan allies and say, hell no, we’re not going to help you. Look what you did to these guys. Look what you did to Abdul. Like hell no. And why wouldn’t they say that this administration has spat in the faces of our veterans and our wartime allies in our intelligence community and our frontline civilians? They’ve made us liars. When we went down range, we told people, if you stand with us, we’ll stand with you. If you take care of us, we’ll take care of you. You can come shoot your shot at the American dream. We didn’t tell them. We’re going to throw a roadblock after roadblock after roadblock in your way. We’re going to pull the rug out from under you. We’re going to keep you separated from your family. We’re going to this. This guy who did this was age 15 when they handed him a gun. We didn’t tell them we’re going to take your youth and then not treat you on the back end.
Safchik: You just said people who came to the Enduring Welcome are safe. They should be safe. Do you trust it’s going to stay that way?
VanDiver: We don’t know. It does seem like the administration is trying to naturalize citizens and strict lawful permanent residence status for people who have green cards. So we’re not going to know what this looks like for another couple of weeks, I think. Right now, Ice has stepped up enforcement. They’re calling Afghans into their offices and snatching them. They’re going to the Afghans. I got a call from a woman in New York. I’m not going to share her name. Who said, oh, my God, Shawn. Please help. Please help. Please help! My husband was just taken by ice. They showed up at our door. They handcuffed him in front of our three year old.
My baby is crying. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go from here.
Safchik: Was that an ally?
VanDiver: Yeah. And the truth is, these folks have done nothing wrong. They followed the rules. If they are now, quote unquote, illegal, it’s because this administration stripped them of their legal status. They arrived legally. They arrived the way that we told them to. And at every point we’re breaking our promises. And so long term, this could have a negative impact on our national security in the short term. And it will definitely have a long term impact on the men and women that we send downrange to fight our wars.
Safchik: So now the Trump administration has halted all asylum requests, stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan. What are the consequences of that decision?
VanDiver: Look, we’re going to lose trust all around the world. The folks who served alongside us are in even more danger now because there’s no inherent protection. The Taliban is looking for them. They’re gonna hunt them down. They’re going to kill them. We. We’ve seen the family of active duty U.S. service members have their throats slit in Afghanistan because this administration won’t move them, and the last administration didn’t move them. They’re allowed to come here. They were allowed to come here under the refugee program, but neither administration moved fast enough. And this administration has done egregious things to screw our wartime allies.
Safchik: Have you seen this coming?
VanDiver: We sort of knew that they weren’t like when they wouldn’t engage with us on anything Afghanistan related. We sort of kind of figured we kind of sort of figured that they were, waiting for something to happen. And to me, it feels a lot like the administration was doing all these little things to try to push people over the edge over the course of these last ten, 11 months. In hopes that an Afghan man or woman would do something, egregious. And what we are our message to Afghans is, you know, Afghan and Afghan culture is a little bit tribal. There’s a lot of different types of Afghan. And our message, that we shared last night at a town hall here in town was this administration doesn’t know how to differentiate between different types of Afghans. They don’t care about any of you.
Safchik: Can you elaborate on what you just said for a second? Do you feel like this man was goaded into this action?
VanDiver: Yeah. I mean, there’s no excuse for what he did. Right. He has to be held accountable. But it seems like they’re taking away SNAP. They’re taking away medical care. They’re forcing these people inside because of the uncertainty about what could happen.
Safchik: You feel like this was inevitable?
VanDiver: I don’t know if it was inevitable, but if you treat people like this for a sustained period of time, I mean, most Afghans have been wonderful people. They’re hurting and they’re looking for help. But I just can’t imagine what it must feel like to be separated from your family and have the government that you served, that you gave up your life for, that you gave up access to your homeland for that you put your family at risk for constantly pushing you, punching you in the face, telling you you’re not good enough, making you the other, making you the bad guy. I can’t imagine what that must feel like.
Safchik: Do you feel like this one man’s actions are being used to represent a whole group of people?
VanDiver: We know that that’s what’s happening. That’s why we got our statement out so fast. After the terrible attack. And it’s just nonsense. It’s total bullshit that the president of the United States and his team are out there making up lies about the vetting, making up lies about the intent of Afghans making up lies, calling these people terrorists, not terrorists. They fought our war for us. They were friends. They took us into their homes. They want to be Americans, many of whom are already Americans, and to be vilified by the most powerful man in the world and his team, to see the entire immigration apparatus turned on Afghans like this. It’s awful. But Afghan evac is not going to stand for this. We and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are going to keep going on Battle Buddies. We’re going to keep standing with our wartime allies. We’re going to keep talking to Congress. We’re going to keep doing everything we can do to help these folks. And we need your viewer support. We need people to go to AfghanEvac, donate and support our efforts today because this is going to be a long fight.
Safchik: Where do you see this road leading?
VanDiver: Well, Congress is going to have to act or the courts are going to have to act. We’re going to need people in the streets, and it’s got to be American citizens. It’s got to be veterans. It’s got to be people that look like you and I out there fighting for this, because the administration is targeting these folks, and they’re looking at their social media. They’re looking at things that they’re doing. We saw that people who protested over the Israel-Gaza conflict are being kicked out of the country, right, because they use their free speech, the free speech warriors that make up this administration really mean that they can say whatever they want, but nobody else can. That’s how you get put into reeducation camps. It’s insane. The pathway that our country is on, the only way we’re going to get off it is if good people of good conscience stand up and make their voices heard.
Safchik: What didn’t I ask?
VanDiver: Look,you know this really well. People, veterans and our wartime allies are hurting all across this country watching this horrific administration do what the Taliban does, right? They’re masked agents of the state showing up to snatch people out of their homes, to disappear them to who knows where. I have been likening this to the American government disappearing Japanese-Americans into camps during World War two. We don’t know how far they’re going to go, but they’ve already gone too far. And it’s breaking up. Families making sure that these folks are falling into poverty and mental decline, mental distress. I just can’t recognize the country we’re in right now.
Safchik: Thank you so much for being here.
VanDiver: Thank you. Thank you for covering this. Thank you for always staying on this. And thank you for taking care of our wartime allies.