From News Nation:
“EXPLAINER: What’s happening
with Afghanistan evacuations?”
(People evacuated from Kabul
Afghanistan wait to board a bus that will take them to a refugee processing
center at the Dulles International Airport on August 25, 2021 in Dulles,
Virginia. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, five evacuation flights
from Kabul, Afghanistan have landed at the Dulles Airport carrying 1,200 Afghan
refugees in last day. The White House also announced that since August 14, the
U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of approximately 82,300
people on US military and coalition flights.)
Since the Taliban seized the
Afghan capital on Aug. 14, more than 82,000 people have been evacuated from
Afghanistan in one of the largest U.S. airlifts in history. While the pace has
picked up in recent days, it’s still a chaotic scramble as people seek to
escape. Afghans trying to reach the Kabul airport face a gauntlet of danger,
and there are far more who want to leave than will be able to do so. Those who
do make it out will face the many challenges of resettlement, either in the
U.S. or somewhere else. And time is running out. President Joe Biden set an
Aug. 31 deadline to complete the U.S.-led evacuation.
Here’s a look at where the
situation stands:
HOW DID WE GET HERE? President
Donald Trump signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020 as part of
an effort to end what he called the “endless wars” in the Middle East. He
agreed to a May 1 deadline to have all troops out of the country. Biden, who
says he no longer wants to risk American lives in a civil war among Afghans,
kept with the withdrawal plan but extended the deadline to September. The
Taliban quickly seized control of most of the country as the U.S. withdrew air
support to the Afghan military. Afghans, fearing retribution and the harsh rule
of the Taliban, rushed to the airport in hopes of getting out of the country.
WHO IS GETTING FLOWN OUT OF
THE COUNTRY? The 70,000 evacuees include more than 4,000 American citizens
and family members, as well as Afghans who have obtained a limited number of
special immigrant visas, which are for people who have worked for the U.S. or
NATO as interpreters or in some other capacity. The U.S. is also evacuating
Afghans, along with their immediate families, who have applied for the visas
but not yet received them, and people who face particular danger from the Taliban.
That includes people who worked for the government, members of civil society,
journalists and human rights activists.
WHERE ARE THEY GOING? American
citizens and people who already have legal U.S. residency, including those who
have been approved for the special immigrant visa, can proceed to the U.S.
after a stopover, typically in Qatar or another Gulf nation. Afghans who have
applied for but not yet received the special visa, or who are seeking to enter
the U.S. as refugees, must first go to a “transit hub” in Europe or Asia for
security vetting by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement authorities,
according to the White House. After they are screened, they can be flown
to the U.S. and housed at military bases in Virginia, New Jersey, Texas and
Wisconsin until their applications are completed and they can be resettled. The
White House says everyone will be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival in the U.S.
It’s unclear how long it will take to process people at military bases. In
addition, at least 13 countries, including Uganda, Rwanda, Costa Rica and
Albania have agreed to temporarily house Afghan refugees until they can be
resettled. “The critical issue now is evacuation, and then you can sort
out resettlement to the United States,” said Bill Frelick, director of the
refugee and migrant rights division at Human Rights Watch.
HAS ANYTHING LIKE THIS
HAPPENED BEFORE? The scale and speed of this airlift are unprecedented, but
the U.S. has a history of taking in refugees from overseas conflicts. The U.S.
airlifted about 7,000 people with the fall of Saigon in 1975 at the end of the
Vietnam War and ultimately took in more than 100,000 refugees from Southeast
Asia. In 1996, the U.S. evacuated about 5,000 Kurds and other Iraqi minorities
from northern Iraq after then-President Saddam Hussein regained control of the
region. In 1999, about 20,000 victims of Yugoslavian “ethnic cleansing″
against Albanians in the province of Kosovo were brought to the United States
as refugees and temporarily housed for processing in Fort Dix, New Jersey. The
U.S. has admitted more than 3.1 million refugees since 1980.
HOW DO AFGHANS GET SETTLED
INTO THEIR NEW LIVES IN THE U.S.? Nine nonprofit resettlement agencies,
including the International Rescue Committee and the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops, oversee a network of affiliates that work to help refugees.
Once they are placed in their new cities, they typically get food and housing
assistance for the first 90 days but are expected to become self-sufficient.
They are greeted at the airport and taken to their new home, generally an
apartment. The nonprofit groups — which operate with a combination of
government grants and private donations — help them find a job and get
acclimated. “People are intimidated and nervous and all of those emotions. But
they’re also, I think, excited. People come in just feeling safe again,” said
Mark Hagar, the Dallas-area director for Refugee Services of Texas. Refugees
are expected to reimburse the government for their flight to the U.S.
HOW CAN PEOPLE HELP? The
groups that help resettle refugees not only need donations, but also volunteers
to meet families at the airport, help set up their apartments and help them get
oriented to the new culture. The International Rescue Committee, for
instance, says that in addition to financial contributions, it can use donated
furniture, groceries and items for babies. Hagar said the agency has
been heartened to see an influx of volunteers in response to events in
Afghanistan. He said a volunteer training session over the weekend that would
normally involve about 50 people had about 300.
SHOULDN’T THIS PROCESS HAVE
STARTED EARLIER? Members of Congress and others have long complained about
the length of time and the bureaucratic hurdles required for former
interpreters and others who worked for the U.S. to get visas. The process
slowed further under Trump, whose administration also cut the number of
refugees allowed into the U.S., and it came to a virtual halt with the outbreak
of COVID-19. This summer, as the U.S. withdrawal approached, the U.S.
held off on a mass evacuation at the request of the Afghan government, which
feared it would trigger a panic that would make it even harder to hold off the
Taliban, according to Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser. But he
said even starting earlier would not have avoided the chaos at the airport. “This
operation is complex. It is dangerous. It is fraught with challenges —
operational, logistical, human. And it’s produced searing images of pain and
desperation,” he told reporters this week. “But no operation like this, no
evacuation from a capital that has fallen in a civil war, could unfold without
those images.”
^ This gives a good summary on
the different dimensions that re currently going on. ^
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