Twenty members of the US House of Representatives and Senate have sent a letter to the country\u2019s secretaries of state and homeland security, calling for urgent action on the cases of families of US service members and Afghan allies who remain stranded outside the United States.<\/p>\n
In the letter, the US government is urged to bring the families of US military personnel and veterans to the United States and to create conditions for Afghans whose immediate family members are legally living in the US to join them. The signatories also called for these cases to be prioritised and for the review process to begin at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar.<\/p>\n
According to the lawmakers, nearly 3,000 family members of US service members and veterans, including spouses, children and parents, are still outside the United States. About 150 of them are staying at Camp As Sayliyah. More than 1,000 Afghan allies and members of their families, whose cases have been reviewed by the US government and who were transferred to Qatar on a government aircraft, are also at the camp.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers said in the letter that no service member should have to choose between serving their country and reuniting with their family. They urged the government to recognise these people as refugees so that their cases would not depend on ad hoc and exceptional permits.<\/p>\n
Scott Peters, a Democratic congressman from California, sent the letter on 29 September, corresponding to 7 Mehr, along with 19 other members of Congress, to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Marco Rubio, Markwayne Mullin. Among the House signatories are Andre Carson, Chris Deluzio, Julie Johnson, Mike Levin and Betty McCollum; senators Richard Blumenthal, Chris Coons, Tim Kaine and Jeanne Shaheen also signed the letter.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press had previously reported, citing US officials, that operations at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar would be extended for another nine months. The centre was due to close on Wednesday, 8 Mehr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US lawmakers urge urgent action for stranded Afghan allies and families of American service members at a Qatar camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-migrant-news","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22962","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=22962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}