Introduction
The last US military jets left Afghanistan near the stroke of midnight on Monday, culminating the bloody and turbulent end of America's longest war in history.
In the final weeks of the war, President Joe Biden faced a torrent of criticism for not anticipating the sudden collapse of the Afghan security forces in the face of the advancing Taliban militants.
Critics say this miscalculation led to the last-minute fight to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul, and left thousands of Afghans at risk still stranded in a country once again ruled by the Taliban.
But refugee advocates say the chaotic pullout took years to come, as a result of wasting a 20-year window to resettle Afghan refugees, particularly those who aided in the US war effort.
Since its invasion in 2001, the United States has resettled some 20,850 Afghans refugees, according to the US State Department. Office of Population, Refugees and Migration. That's a comparatively small number: more than 147,600 Iraqi refugees were resettled during the same period.
And the number of Afghan refugees has dropped significantly in recent years. By the end of July, the US had only resettled 494 Afghan refugees in fiscal year 2021, which ends on September 30. By comparison, more than 2,700 Afghan refugees were resettled in fiscal year 2016, during former President Barack Obama's last full year in office.
Another 72,500 Afghans have been resettled through the special immigrant visa program, known as SIV, which was created by Congress in 2009 for Afghans and Iraqis working directly with US and allied military forces or embassies.
But that is still a long way from an estimated 250,000 Afghan allies they were not evacuated before the withdrawal.
With better resettlement efforts ahead of time, advocates say that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Afghans may have been out of harm's way and there may have been no need for mass evacuations.
"For us, one of the most challenging things in watching the events unfold was knowing how avoidable all of this was," said Betsy Fisher, chief strategy officer at the International refugee assistance project.
Bureaucratic bureaucracy
For years, advocates have criticized the bureaucracy surrounding the US resettlement program, saying that the application process is too burdensome and backward.
Earlier this year, for example, the processing time for Afghans applying for SIV reached an average of almost two years, despite the fact that, by law, applications are supposed to be completed in nine months.
The situation worsened under former President Donald Trump, who made anti-immigrant measures a hallmark of his presidency. It suspended the resettlement program for 120 days in 2017 and then left it chronically understaffed, significantly slowing down the process for thousands of applicants. It also gradually lowered the annual refugee admission limit from 85,000 in 2016 to 15,000 in 2020.
โUnder Trump, we had an administration committed to not only reducing the number of refugees that could enter [the U.S.], but also emptying the refugee resettlement system itself, to seriously weaken it, โsaid Ali Noorani, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. "Now the Afghans who helped our army face the same consequences from that."
Yael Schacher, Senior US Attorney At Refugees International, said politics prevented Congress from intervening.
"It would have been great if Congress passed legislation in favor of refugees and immigrants, so that we could get more visas for Afghan refugees," Schacher said. "But no Republican was going to take a chance on a law that would expand legal immigration."
Earlier this year, Biden came under heavy criticism when he broke his campaign promise and kept the annual refugee admission limit set by Trump. Quickly stepped back, promising to resettle 62,500 refugees this fiscal year.
But it seems likely that the Biden administration will miss the goal: By the end of July, the US had successfully resettled 6,274 refugees, with just two months left for the fiscal year.
With the Afghans, the Biden administration has been resorting to an emergency measure, telling refugee resettlement agencies to prepare to receive up to 50,000 refugees arriving on โhumanitarian parole. "
The move will allow Afghans to enter the United States without visas and give them one year to complete their application for refugee status, or SIV. In early August, the State Department also authorized Give priority consideration to Afghan refugee applicants who worked for US-based employers but do not qualify for SIVs.
The movements of the Biden administration have been denounced by a handful of vocal Republicans, but polls show a vast majority of Americans, 90% of Democrats and 76% of Republicans, support resettlement of Afghans.
Noorani said the Biden administration should seize the moment not only to provide immediate relief to Afghans, but also to push for a review of the US immigration system.
"I have worked on immigration more than I care to admit, and I have never seen this kind of bipartisan support for Afghan allies to resettle here," Noorani said. "This is an incredible opportunity for the administration, and more importantly, in many ways, for civic society, to find a consensus around the immigration issue."
Rui Kaneya is a senior reporter for the Center for Public Integrity. He can be contacted at rkaneya@publicintegrity.org. Follow him on Twitter at @ruikaneya.
