Tens of thousands of Afghans still waiting for US visas

A feminist journalist, she often visited shelters to talk to women who had fled abusive husbands. She accompanied them to court when they were going through divorce proceedings.

Shukria Sediqi's work was immoral, according to the Taliban, so when the Taliban overran her hometown of Herat in western Afghanistan in August 2021 as the US withdrew troops from the country, she and her family fled.

Two years after Kabul collapsed, tens of thousands of Afghans were still allowed to apply for US visas. — Two years after the fall of Kabul, tens of thousands of Afghans are still waiting for US visas. Photo: AP

First, they tried to board one of the last U.S. flights out of Kabul. Then they tried to get to Tajikistan but didn't have visas. Finally, in October 2021, after sleeping outside for two nights at a checkpoint into Pakistan amid crowds of Afghans fleeing the Taliban, she and her family made it to the neighboring country.

But two years after the US left Afghanistan, Sediqi and tens of thousands of others are still waiting. Despite some recent progress, processing US visas for Afghans remains painfully slow. So far, only a small fraction of Afghans have been resettled.

Many of the asylum seekers are living off their savings, living in limbo. They worry that the US has promised them so much and then abandoned them. “What will happen to my children? What will happen to me? No one knows,” Sediqi said.

Since 2009, the United States has had a special immigrant visa program to help Afghans such as interpreters work directly with the US government and military.

Then, in the final days of the US presence in the country, the Biden administration created two new refugee programs, expanding the number of Afghans who can apply for resettlement in the US.

The US airlift in August 2021 brought more than 70,000 Afghans to safety, along with tens of thousands of Americans and citizens of other countries. Most were admitted to the US on humanitarian grounds.

Many others are still waiting. There are about 150,000 people applying for special immigrant visa programs. A report by the Wartime Allied Association says that at the current rate, it would take 31 years to process all of them.

In June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US had resettled about 24,000 Afghans since September 2021, including many employees of news organizations.

Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, said the U.S. asylum process in general can be very slow and wait times of up to 10 years are common.

Furthermore, former US President Donald Trump gutted the asylum system, lowering the number of refugees accepted each year to an all-time low.

Mai Anh (according to AP)

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