Trump’s deployment of National Guard in U.S. cities gets renewed scrutiny

John Yang:

The president almost immediately announced he's sending 500 more National Guard troops to Washington.

Juliette Kayyem:

Yes.

John Yang:

Is that a solution?

Juliette Kayyem:

It's really not. I mean, it's a sort of fallacy to think more is better, especially when it comes to deployments anywhere by the military.

The question isn't really about whether the force can be protected. The question is whether the mission — what the mission is and how it is defined. Then you can figure out what force protection is about. The president, as we all know, wanted the National Guard in D.C., despite decreasing crime rates there, because he viewed it as a war zone or too much crime there.

We now know, over the last couple months, these National Guard units have been really been used for roaming patrols, visibility patrols, or, in many instances, sort of landscaping, picking up trash. None of that's bad, per se, but none of that is unique to the National Guard, nor is it what they're trained to do.

And it's in that sort of gray area that you create these vulnerabilities, as we saw for the National Guard. Adding more doesn't really solve the problem of, what is the mission and how is it defined for the troops, who we all want to protect?

John Yang:

Talk about a little bit about that, what's the mission?

Juliette Kayyem:

Yes.

John Yang:

Is this a mission that the National Guard is suited for?

Juliette Kayyem:

No. I mean, I have worked with the National Guard all my career. The National Guard supports civilian efforts in a disaster or in a homeland or is deployed abroad.

This, as we all know, is a unique, and some say illegal use by the president of the National Guard in D.C. The National Guard is essentially federalized automatically. It reports to the president. And so the deployment of the National Guard, a unit that's not trained, units that are not trained to work in civilian areas and urban areas as armed, without any standards of what the metrics are.

Like, what is success for this mission? All of that creates sort of a loose understanding of what the mission is, the potential for mission creep, and then, of course, vulnerabilities because there is no notion of force protection.

I mean, I sort of describe it as like neither war nor peace. The politics have thrust the National Guard into this gray zone that they're not built for, but that has made them vulnerable.

John Yang:

Administration officials are making much of the fact that the alleged shooter entered the United States under a Biden era program for Afghans who were fleeing the Taliban, and that he was never vetted, that there were no background checks. What do you say to that?

Juliette Kayyem:

What we understand now is that the alleged shooter had actually a number of vetting moments.

Some occurred in Afghanistan. What the CIA director, the present CIA director is saying now is that he did assist the CIA. We don't know in what exact capacity, but that he was assisting in intelligence and intelligence gathering efforts.

He then is brought to the United States as Kabul is falling in a special visa program. That does not grant permanent status. It was just a program that brought people in. They are then vetted during that process. And then, again, as he's regularizing his process, he was granted asylum under the Trump administration this year.

There is another vetting process. So, at three different moments, he's examined by the United States, and either they missed something or something happened since he was granted asylum a few months ago that radicalized him relatively quickly.

So I think it's premature to say this administration was wrong and this one's right or that agency was wrong and this one's right. I think we don't know. But what we do know is, he's had strong ties to the United States for much of his life during the Afghan war, and only — and in the last couple of months, at least, as he was granted asylum, he then begins to plan at least an attack on the National Guard that no one quite knows — no one can explain that yet, as far as we know.

John Yang:

The administration has paused immigration from Afghanistan. And they also say they're going to reexamine all the asylum grants under the Biden administration. What do you make of that?

Juliette Kayyem:

I think, in some ways, the Trump administration doesn't quite know what happened, and so they want to look and see whether this Special Immigrant Visa program that allowed Afghans to come in who supported us during the war is picking up the right sort of metrics for radicalization.

That might be necessary at this stage, but the idea that you're going to pause indefinitely all Afghans who have come to the United States or their ability to come here permanently I think is at this stage sort of overblown and also undermines our attempts to support the Afghans who were so instrumental in supporting us during the Afghan war.

This is one person who did something absolutely heinous. We need to find out how we either got through the vetting process or what happened in terms of radicalization more recently. But the notion that this is about all Afghans is one that is undermined by the reality.

Most Afghans are here lawfully and here because they supported our war effort in Afghanistan.

John Yang:

Juliette Kayyem, thank you very much.

Juliette Kayyem:

Thank you.