Todd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, warned Friday that national security is at risk due to widespread vetting failures during the Biden administration following a series of deadly incidents in Atlanta.
The attacks included the murder of 40-year-old Department of Homeland Security employee Lauren Bullis while she was walking her dog on Monday morning. Adon Abel, a 26-year-old U.K. native naturalized in 2022, also allegedly killed an unidentified woman and critically injured a homeless man.
DHS reported that Adon Abel’s criminal record includes convictions for sexual battery, battery against a police officer, obstruction, assault with a deadly weapon, and vandalism. Lyons called Bullis “one of our great employees at the Office of Inspector General.”
Lyons, who announced his resignation effective May 31, stated: “We really don’t understand why the administration would want someone like this. The Biden administration naturalized so many individuals, we didn’t have time to properly vet them. And the scary part is, we don’t know how many of these individuals are out there.”
He added that DHS has begun reviewing cases from the period when nearly 3.5 million immigrants were naturalized during Joe Biden’s presidency. “We do, we do,” he said when asked if the department needed to re-vet individuals. “USCIS … they’ve started revamping their processes, going back. … We have to go back, and we have to re-vet these individuals.”
Lyons also linked the crisis to ongoing DHS funding shortfalls: “The national security of the United States is at stake when you don’t fund Department of Homeland Security fully.”
