First 200

From the BBC:

“First group of evacuated Afghan interpreters arrives in US”

About 200 Afghan interpreters and their families have arrived in the US - the first of a group of 2,500 Afghans being evacuated as the Taliban advances. The interpreters are being resettled under a visa programme for those who worked with the US during the recently ended 20-year war with the Taliban. They arrived in the early hours of Friday morning and were taken to Fort Lee military base in Virginia. They are expected to stay there for around a week while they are processed. The Taliban have been advancing Afghanistan following a decision by the new US president, Joe Biden to withdraw the remaining American troops from the country. With those advances have come danger to those who worked alongside US troops during the two-decade conflict.

Since 2008, approximately 70,000 Afghans have been resettled in the US on a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV). Last week, a senior state department official said that the total number of visa applicants now stands just over 20,000. About half have yet to complete the first steps of the process. Those yet to go through the process face potential threats in attempting to secure a visa. Mike Jason, a former US Army battalion commander who was deployed to Afghanistan, told the BBC that travelling across Taliban-controlled areas with the documentation needed for SIVs puts interpreters in "mortal danger". "That's basically an entire confession that you're an interpreter working for the Americans. We're asking them to travel with the evidence," he said Not-for-profit group No One Left Behind estimates that at least 300 Afghans or their family members have been killed for working with the US.

In the UK, military commanders, including four former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling on the government to allow more Afghans who worked for British forces to be allowed to resettle. The government has recently expanded its relocation scheme, but the former military chiefs said they were "gravely concerned" about the safety of hundreds of Afghans who had worked with UK forces but had their applications to come to the UK rejected.

The Taliban were removed from power by the US-led invasion in 2001, following the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. Fighting between the insurgent Taliban and Afghan government forces has increased over the past two months as international troops pull out of the country. The Taliban claimed recently that their fighters had retaken 85% of the country - but the figure is disputed by the government and impossible to verify independently.

^ This is a good first step. Hopefully, the US Government completes this before the US Military leaves Afghanistan and the Taliban takes over. ^

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58019650