During the final, chaotic days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., stood as an unwavering champion for resettling the Afghan nationals who had aided America and its allies.
“We have failed in our obligation to help many of these Afghans who risked their lives, and in many cases died, for the cause of their own country in assistance to the United States, and we owe them to help them get into our country with these visas,” Barr said then in an interview with Kentucky Educational Television.
Now a Senate candidate, Barr saw his remarks resurface and quickly go viral last week after the shooting of two National Guard members — one of whom died — in Washington, D.C. Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who served alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Lakanwal pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges including first-degree murder.
“I don’t believe we owe anything to foreigners from Afghanistan, but I do believe our politicians owe it to the American citizens that they’re supposed to represent, to not flood our country with thousands of people from the 3rd world who don’t share our values and never will,” businessman Nate Morris, one of Barr’s rivals in the GOP primary, wrote in a social media post sharing a clip from the interview.
The clash offered a preview of how the topic could jam other Republicans running in competitive primaries next year, from the already hostile Kentucky race to Sen. John Cornyn’s re-election battle in Texas and campaigns for governor in Florida and South Carolina.
It’s also a fight that reflects shifting goalposts for a GOP in which even legal immigration has become a source of debate. The attack on Guard members — which officials have said was targeted — validated warnings from several leading figures on the right, including Vice President JD Vance, who had argued that resettling Afghan refugees could yield tragic consequences.
“This has become a flaming hot issue with MAGA,” said a top Republican strategist involved in several statewide races who was granted anonymity to share candid observations about intraparty tensions.
“Any Republican running in a competitive primary who has a history of supporting bringing in Afghan refugees following [then-President Joe] Biden’s withdrawal is probably not sleeping well right now,” the strategist added. “The base is out for blood and they’re not just blaming Democrats for what happened to those two National Guardsmen, they’re blaming the Republicans who they view as betraying the country on these immigration issues.”
The motive for last week’s shooting remains unknown. Lakanwal, who had worked under CIA direction and, according to former intelligence and military officials, would have undergone extensive vetting for that role, came to the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome. The Biden-era program aimed to support “vulnerable Afghans” and those who worked alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan by helping them resettle in the United States.
Many Afghan nationals applied for asylum — another process that typically includes a vigorous vetting — while waiting for special immigrant visa applications to be processed. Lakanwal was granted asylum this year, under President Donald Trump, sources told NBC News. Trump administration officials have not disclosed whether Lakanwal ever received a special immigrant visa.
Since the shooting, Trump has called for a re-examination of all Afghan nationals who came to the U.S. during the Biden administration while vowing to “permanently pause“ all immigration from what he called “Third World countries.”
Barr, like every House Democrat and all but 16 other House Republicans, voted in July 2021 to expand and expedite special immigrant visas for Afghan evacuees. The bill never became law, and within weeks the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — set in motion by Trump in his first term and executed by Biden — descended into chaos. An overwhelmingly bipartisan effort soon gave way to more tribal politics.
While Morris has been calling attention to the visa issue since the shooting, another Republican in the Kentucky race, former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, has not mentioned it in his social media posts.
A spokesperson for Barr’s campaign declined to answer questions about his 2021 comments, instead referring to a statement Barr released after last week’s shooting. In the statement, Barr emphasized a September 2021 vote against a continuing resolution that avoided a government shutdown and included funding for Biden’s evacuee program.
“As I’ve said repeatedly, ‘If we can’t vet them, they don’t belong here,’” Barr said. “President Trump is cleaning up Biden’s mess and I fully support him.”
Cornyn, who faces primary challenges in Texas next year from Rep. Wesley Hunt and state Attorney General Ken Paxton, could also find himself vulnerable on the issue. In June 2021, Cornyn joined with Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., to introduce a bill that would have expedited special immigrant visas for Afghan interpreters and translators who assisted the U.S. And unlike Barr, he voted in favor of subsequent continuing resolutions that helped fund the evacuee program.
Natalie Yezbick, a spokesperson for Cornyn, emphasized in an email that Lakanwal initially came to the country under the Biden-era program, not under a special immigrant visa.
“Senator Cornyn has repeatedly warned about the dangers of the Biden administration’s parole programs and wrote a letter last year specifically warning about the problems with Afghan vetting,” Yezbick wrote. “It is inaccurate to say that Sen. Cornyn was supportive of the program under which this individual entered the U.S.”
Hunt, who when asked about visas in 2024 told NOTUS that “we should be loyal back” to those “who were loyal to us,” said Tuesday that he plans to introduce legislation to “revoke all available special Afghan immigrant visas.”
“What unfolded last week in Washington, D.C., is a tragedy — one born from years of decisions made by entrenched elites who consistently prioritize foreigners over the American people,” said Hunt, who was not in Congress during the 2021 votes.
Paxton, in an emailed statement, offered similar thoughts, accusing Cornyn of focusing more on “aiding foreign invaders than he is [on] protecting actual Americans and stopping terrorists from coming into our country.”
In Florida, investment firm CEO James Fishback has raised the issue against Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds in the state’s Republican primary for governor. Donalds voted for the July 2021 special immigrant visa bill but against the later spending bills.
“Why did he vote to let in thousands of unvetted Afghans?” Fishback, who is positioning himself as a loyalist to term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis, a former Trump rival, wrote last week in a post on X that included a clip from a 2021 interview in which Donalds spoke supportively of resettling Afghan allies.
Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to Donalds’ campaign, referenced the December 2021 continuing resolution, which passed the House without a single Republican vote.
“Republicans didn’t vote for the CR that funded Operation Allies Welcome, Joe Biden’s reckless Afghan resettlement program,” Alvarez said. “Byron Donalds has been rock-solid from Day 1: If you’re in this country unvetted or illegally, get out.”
In South Carolina, meanwhile, the crowded GOP primary field for governor includes two supporters of the initial visa bill from July 2021: Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman. The issue could also come into play in Iowa, where Rep. Ashley Hinson is seeking a promotion to the Senate and Rep. Randy Feenstra is running for governor, and in Wisconsin, where Rep. Tom Tiffany is a candidate for governor. All three Republicans voted for the July 2021 bill and stand as early front-runners in their primaries.
“Like many Americans, I supported improving the Special Immigrant Visa process and strongly opposed President Biden’s legally dubious use of so-called ‘categorical parole’ during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal,” Tiffany said in a statement to NBC News. “Every Afghan brought in under the Biden administration must be reexamined.”
A second Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly about how Republicans might weaponize the issue against each other acknowledged the nuances of the issue — that House members supported visas before it was clear how messy the withdrawal would become.
“That’s the problem with being an incumbent. You’ve maybe taken some s—– votes,” the strategist added. “It might have been something that most other Republicans voted for. But on game day, that doesn’t matter to voters.”
“This will become, I think, a big thing,” they added. “Hey, if I’m Nate Morris, I’m using it.”