‘That’s Not How It Happened!’ Homeland Security Expert Disputes Trump Claims on Afghan Murder Suspect

A homeland security expert claimed Friday that the Trump administration was using a misleading photo of Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban in its quest to justify the further tightening of U.S. immigration policies.

Shortly after the tragic shooting of two National Guardsmen before Thanksgiving, allegedly by an Afghan national, the president posted a photo of a “horrendous airlift from Afghanistan” and railed against the immigrant vetting process.

“This is part of the horrendous airlift from Afghanistan,” The president wrote. “Hundreds of thousands of people poured into our Country totally unvetted and unchecked. We will fix it, but will never forget what Crooked Joe Biden and his Thugs did to our Country!”

Donell Harvin, the former chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence for the Government of the District of Columbia, said the plane photo was misleading.

“The vetting process was a rigorous process, and they shouldn’t conflate the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan with the vetting process. And that’s what the president did yesterday,” Harvin said, continuing:

He showed this video of Afghan refugees piling to a transport plane. And people think that that plane went nonstop from Kabul airport to JFK. That’s not how it happened! That airplane went to another country. Those people were let off. They were rigorously vetted. Some people went to a second country and they weren’t allowed into this country until they were fully, fully vetted, like we would do any other refugees.

Earlier in the interview, Harvin claimed that Trump’s vow to “permanently pause” immigration from third-world countries “has nothing to do with the safety and security of the American population.”

“This administration’s looked for excuses even before this incident to reevaluate, deport people who are here legally, green card holders or even denaturalized people,” Harvin said. “All this tragic incident [has] done in the last 72 hours, has given the administration really a green light, an excuse, to go forth and enact policies that they really have wanted to do for a long, long time.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.