Julie Johnson, a member of the US House of Representatives, has described the suspension of the transfer process for Afghans who worked with the United States as \u201coutrageous,\u201d saying Washington has ignored people who risked their lives while cooperating with American forces during the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a virtual meeting, she said the United States once expressed gratitude to these collaborators, but has now left many of them in limbo. Johnson also referred to the case of Mohammad Nazir Paktiwal, a former US military partner, who died in US immigration detention.<\/p>\n
According to her, US Immigration officials have been repeatedly asked to explain how Paktiwal died, but the case remains a focus of critics of Washington\u2019s immigration policies.<\/p>\n
At the same meeting, Republican Representative Don Bacon, a former US serviceman, said the United States has a moral responsibility toward Afghans who served alongside American troops.<\/p>\n
Sean VanDiver, president and founder of AfghanEvac, said about 260,000 Afghans in nearly 90 countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Qatar, are still waiting for US promises to be fulfilled. He added that many of them, despite progress in their cases, have still not been able to complete the immigration process.<\/p>\n
According to AfghanEvac figures, 178,110 people have so far received chief-of-mission approval in Special Immigrant Visa cases, but their transfer has not been finalized. VanDiver said that in the first three months of this year, nearly 1,900 Afghan applicants for the visa were interviewed, but only three visas were issued.<\/p>\n
He also said the US Congress has authorized a total of 50,500 Special Immigrant Visas and about 6,000 remain unused. According to him, the average processing time for these cases has reached 1,191 days.<\/p>\n
In another part of the meeting, participants warned about the situation of Afghans living at the Al-Sailiya camp in Qatar. They said more than 1,000 Afghans are in the facility and, given plans announced to close it, their fate is unclear.<\/p>\n
VanDiver added that about 3,000 family members of US military personnel still remain outside the country; some at Al-Sailiya camp and others in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sharif Ali, head of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said restrictions on migration pathways, the suspension of the refugee admissions program and problems with the SIV program have left many eligible people in uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Danilo Zak, policy director at a refugee-support organization, also warned that restricted access for some refugees in the United States to food assistance, health services and support programs makes it harder for newly arrived families to achieve economic independence.<\/p>\n
The US Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, is intended for people who worked with American institutions in Afghanistan. Following the collapse of the republic and the return of Taliban rule, the program became one of the main routes out for former US collaborators and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US lawmakers criticize the suspension of Afghan ally transfers and warn many SIV applicants remain stranded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}