As many as 600 Afghans were resettled in Tennessee under a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy decision made under President Joe Biden, whose administration authorized humanitarian parole for about 76,000 citizens of Afghanistan who were evacuated from the country following Biden’s withdrawal of the American military.
The Biden administration’s DHS announced the resettlement program, called Operation Allies Welcome, on August 29, 2021, just one day before the final U.S. forces would leave Afghanistan in a scene that would be compared to the imagery of the fall of Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, during the Vietnam War.
According to an archived DHS web page from the Biden administration, the former president directed DHS, “to lead and coordinate ongoing efforts across the federal government to support vulnerable Afghans, including those who worked alongside us in Afghanistan for the past two decades, as they safely resettle in the United States.”
Former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his agency were specifically charged with coordinating the response with other agencies, but also involved connecting the Afghans with “non-governmental organizations for resettlement into communities.”
The archived DHS web page specifically states that the effort to resettle the Afghans involved “close collaboration with partners in state and local government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.”
One of these nonprofits may have been Catholic Charities in the Nashville Diocese, as the religious nonprofit announced that it anticipated as many as 600 Afghans to be resettled in Tennessee in a December 2021 update from its Tennessee Office for Refugees.
“Approximately 600 arrivals are now anticipated in Tennessee: 80% in Nashville, and smaller numbers in Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis,” the nonprofit announced. “This is an increase from the previous anticipated arrival number of 415 and is based on community capacity assessments.”
The earlier plan to resettle 415 Afghans in Tennessee was first reported by Reuters in September 2021, citing the Biden White House, which said the numbers were based on, “the first group of nearly 37,000 evacuees,” and not the full 76,000 who were eventually resettled.
Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Nashville additionally claimed the nonprofit specifically helped the Biden administration resettle 332 Afghans in Middle Tennessee.
“We worked closely with the U.S. State Department for months to get ready and we are now actively finding and furnishing homes for arrivals,” said the religious nonprofit. “The resettlement process will continue for months to come. Each person who comes to the United States to begin a new life has been carefully vetted by the State Department and Homeland Security.”
With President Donald Trump in office, and in the wake of the ambush attack near the White House that was allegedly committed against two West Virginia National Guard soldiers by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, one of the Afghans resettled in the United States, both DHS and the White House have disputed the past administration’s vetting claims.
Lakanwal is reported to be one of the Afghans resettled under Biden as part of Operation Allies Welcome.
“Joe Biden completely did not vet any of these individuals, did not vet this individual,” said DHS Secretary Krist Noem on Sunday.
She also said the Biden administration “waited until he got into the United States,” and noted that Lakanwal’s December 2025 application for asylum “was opened under the Joe Biden administration.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered similar remarks during her Monday media briefing, appearing to describe the Afghans resettled under the Biden administration as a public safety threat.
“The border is now secure, thanks to President Trump, but the threat in our interior remains real and urgent,” said Leavitt. “These public safety threats are already inside our land, and President Trump was elected on a promise to find and remove them, and he has already taken significant steps and made significant progress toward fulfilling this promise.”
She confirmed, “The Trump administration is now actively reexamining all of the Afghans imported into the country by Joe Biden. Any individual who threatens our national security, or our citizenry, will be subject to removal.”
The new scrutiny of Afghans admitted into the nation under Biden is only the latest effort by the Trump administration to review the last president’s withdrawal of military forces from the Central Asian nation, as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered a full review of Biden’s withdrawal in May.
Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Nashville notably slashed its workfroce earlier this year, attributing the decision to funding changes under the Trump administration.
This is not the first instance of the Biden administration using nonprofits to move migrants into Tennessee, as Governor Bill Lee previously blasted the Democratic administration for a plot that would have seen thousands of illegal immigrants released from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility into the Volunteer State. The plan was scrapped following legal action by Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
The Catholic Charities operation is the most profitable no nonprofit imaginable. They dump “refugees” on the state and move on to collect for the next one. They should lose their nontaxable designation. Or better yet just be run out of the state.
BTW “governor” Lee agreed to accept “refugees’ from the Biden admin without consulting the Assembly nor any of us taxpaying citizens. The guy is an absolute disaster. I wonder when Ford will repay the state (us) for the abortion of the $1 billion gift from the state. You do remember the special session he convened just to throw our good money at Ford, right?
A really deep dive (investigation) into Catholic Charities is LONG overdue.
That’s just great, don’t leave home unarmed.