Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called on Congress to get tough on immigration, saying the U.S. should have insisted that Afghan immigrants who spoke English stay in their home country.

"We’ve admitted about 60,000 people from Afghanistan, and my point there is, if they speak English and were helping us as translators, they should stay in Afghanistan and be the founding fathers of their country and bring Western appeal and Western ideas to Afghanistan," Paul said during an interview that aired Sunday with John Catsimatidis on his "Cats Roundtable" AM 970 radio show in New York.

"Instead, we’ve moved them all over here. We’ve moved 65,000 people from Iraq. A couple of those moved to my hometown and, unfortunately, got caught up in extremism and jihadism and plotted to buy stinger missiles to attack America," he continued.

Paul made the comments while explaining why he thought employment immigration "is a good thing" if visa applicants can prove who they are, be willing to work, and have peaceful intentions.

"We do need more scrutiny. If you’ve got one name, and you want to immigrate from Pakistan or Afghanistan, I’d put you at the bottom of some list, and you’re probably not coming here if you don’t have the appropriate paperwork," he added.