In addition to the hundreds of Americans, thousands of vulnerable Afghans also remain in Afghanistan while they await special immigrant visas, which are given to allies who helped U.S. forces during their time in that country. . . . “The total number of SIV's in the pipeline is 28,000, according to our records, of which 8,555 have come out with their family members,” he said. “So that would suggest there's a significant number of SIVs still in Afghanistan.”
[Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin] Kahl said the Biden administration is trying “to get them out and hold the Taliban to their pledge for safe passage with people with documents which should include SIVs.”
The problem, however, is “the SIV process was not designed for an emergency — it's very slow,” he said. “Typically it took a year or two [and] nothing was done in the previous administration to speed that up. At the beginning of the Biden administration, the State Department took some steps that shrunk the time to about eight months — still way too long.”The Pentagon has also taken steps to help the State Department process SIV applications faster, creating “an enormous database … to try to speed up the confirmation of employment” necessary for special immigrant visas, Kahl said.Meanwhile, about 53,000 Afghans are awaiting visa processing at eight military installations in the United States and about another 3,500 at bases in the Middle East and Europe, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday.More than 6,000 have completed the process and have resettled in the U.S. since evacuation efforts began in late July, Kirby said.
Honestly, it is in the best interests of the Taliban to let the Special Immigrant Visa applicants and their families migrate to the U.S. These individuals are among the most capable people in the country with an inclination to be pro-Western and anti-Taliban. Their departure would greatly weaken any potential insurgency against the Taliban by people who felt allegiance to the U.S. installed Afghan government that the Taliban toppled or that seeks a new regime to replace the Taliban along the same liens. In short, allowing them to leave would remove a thorn from their sides.
It would also discourage the U.S. from considering future involvement of any kind in Afghanistan out of guilt for the harm it caused by leaving so many people behind.
But whether the Taliban will see the wisdom in this course of action, and allow it to overcome a desire to inflict vengeance on people who provided aid and comfort to their deadly foreign backed enemies for two decades, remains to be seen.
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