This is the ninth installment in a Washington Examiner series detailing the struggles of Afghan activists and allies affected by the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
While President Joe Biden flies undocumented immigrants to cities in the dead of night, the United States has been slow to evacuate the tens of thousands of Afghan allies who qualify for refugee status or U.S. visas but live in crisis because of Biden’s horrific botching of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Recently, Afghan hopes were aflutter with indications that evacuation flights from Afghanistan had resumed. The lackadaisical efforts that followed quickly doused Afghans’ optimism. The Biden administration has also set aside “up to $1.2 billion” for evacuation efforts, while a senior official told Reuters of “the goal … to process” and evacuate 1,000 special immigrant visa applicants and 1,000 refugees each month.
Again, the reality is more somber.
At the rate suggested, evacuation will take multiple years. There are around 28,000 Afghans with Priority 1 and Priority 2 referrals to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program scattered between Afghanistan, the U.S., and third-party countries. Untold tens of thousands of SIV applicants and SIV-eligible Afghans — the State Department tells me their figures are constantly changing — are stuck in Afghanistan. The proffered plan does not address the evacuation of around 35,000 Afghan humanitarian parole visa-seekers, whose applications will likely take more than five years to process.
Biden’s lack of speed will prove deadly as the Taliban continue their campaign of terror. Because the people who shared their circumstances face imminent danger, their names have been changed.
A member of Afghanistan’s persecuted Shiite Hazara minority, Shima previously worked to support women’s rights. The Taliban have whipped Shima twice for leaving her home unescorted by a male relative, though Shima has none. The last whipping came with a promise that the Taliban would kill her the next time she was seen without an escort. Shima told me that she, her mother, and her sisters have gone into hiding in a relative’s house, and the Taliban have seized her home.
Ahmadzai, a former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee and radio personality, told me the Taliban arrested him soon after coming to power, humiliating him and passing a video of his arrest to Taliban-affiliated relatives. More recently, the Taliban attacked Ahmadzai’s home and arrested him, putting him “under severe mental pressure.” Now prescribed anxiety medication for his strained mental state, Ahmadzai changes his location often. The Taliban “are now planning for my mysterious death,” Ahmadzai told me. “I am like the living dead.”
Because many of Marzieh’s family members worked in support of the U.S. or Afghan governments, they burned their incriminating documents months ago, after the Taliban visited their home. Just last week, the Taliban returned. With no time to flee, Marzieh’s family was in terror, until a fight between Taliban members distracted them from their search. In the ensuing clash, SIV applicant Marzieh was injured by broken glass from a stray bullet.
Another SIV applicant, Wahdat anxiously awaits his chief of mission approval. He tells me the Taliban have threatened him at his home on multiple occasions for working with the U.S., and Wahdat fears they plan to carry off his two teenage daughters.
Headlines celebrating the resumption of occasional evacuation flights do not capture the abandonment felt by Afghans without access to international aid, without employment, and with no knowledge of how long they must survive in a country where they are daily being hunted.
As a former Marine Corps interpreter who has fled to Pakistan explained, “They really do not fulfill their commitments to the Afghans.”
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
