As the United States moves to finally put an end to its military campaign in Afghanistan, Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticized the apparent intent of the US authorities to welcome thousands of Afghan refugees on US soil.
Earlier, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that the "task at hand" the US is currently focused on in Afghanistan is "getting as many American citizens, as many SIV applicants, as many members of vulnerable population who are eligible to be evacuated to the airport and out on planes".
"Notice how she puts all three together. Americans, special visa applicants, vulnerable population. What the hell is that?" Carlson said.
He further insisted that "the American government exists to help American citizens", rather than "vulnerable populations", noting that the latter definition "changes depending on which interest group is in power".
"Our leaders are telling us that what really matters is importing tens of thousands of Afghan refugees into the United States, before we’ve even evacuated all the Americans who are stuck there," Carlson said.
He also complained that the people the US government wants to bring to the United States from Afghanistan aren’t just translators, and "people who have loyally served the US military", but "anybody in Afghanistan who wants to come here for the free healthcare".
Earlier this week, Carlson suggested that, "if history is any guide – and it’s always a guide", people in the United States may witness "many refugees from Afghanistan" resettling in the US in the coming months, and that "that number may swell to the millions" over the next decade.
"So first we invade, and then we’re invaded. It is always the same," he stated.
Carlson’s concerns were echoed by Stephen Miller, former advisor to the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump, who warned that the United States is no longer “in control of the central apparatus in Afghanistan to be able to vet anybody”.
"The Taliban has all of the control of the government now. So the notion that people can just show up at a checkpoint and demand resettlement to the United States … is just an impossibility," he argued during his recent appearance on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle".
Miller also claimed that resettling a refugee in the US is "extraordinarily expensive", and that "for the price that you could resettle a refugee in America, you could resettle 10 times more, 15 times more, in their home region."