An ardent US ally, Kosovo, has agreed to take in refugees in Afghanistan who fail to eliminate the first rounds of detection and take them in for up to a year, a US official said on Saturday, in a solution planned for to one of the security problems of the frantic. US evacuation from Kabul airport.
The U.S. plan is likely to face objections from refugee advocates, who are already complaining about the lack of public disclosure and legal jurisdiction uncertainty in the Biden administration’s use of checkpoints in the United States. ‘foreigner. These fast-moving overseas transit sites continue to operate at or near full speed to verify eligibility and seek security concerns among thousands of Afghans and fewer Americans who have left the country. Afghanistan, maintained by the Taliban, between 15 and 31 August.
The U.S. official spoke with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the plan. It was the first disclosure of what the United States intends to do with Afghans or other evacuees who have been unable to clean up the first rounds of detection or cases where the cases require further processing.
The U.S. embassy in Kosovo in a statement last Saturday stressed that the agreement did not mean that Kosovo would take in evacuees who had been deemed ineligible to enter the United States. “Some applicants are still in the process of obtaining the necessary documents and providing all the information necessary to obtain the requirements under U.S. law for their immediate entry,” the embassy statement states.
The Biden administration had resisted for months urging some refugee organizations and veteran groups to bring former Afghan allies or others more vulnerable to Taliban attack on U.S. territory for security inspection and others. processes.
Several other countries, for a time, were prevented from temporarily hosting Afghan evacuees from the United States, for fear of being left with the security problems of the Americans. All of this posed major hurdles in U.S. preparations for the evacuation of vulnerable Afghans, even before Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15.
The rapid conquest of Afghanistan by the Taliban led to the chaotic military-US airlift outside Kabul airport.
Within days of the Taliban’s acquisition, the administration mobilized thousands of U.S. troops, diplomats, police officers, border and transportation workers, volunteers, and others for the detection, prosecution, and care of the evacuees. of a half-dozen U.S. naval stations, airfields, and military. bases in Europe and Asia. Officials and volunteers handed out stuffed animals and toys to children arriving at many of the traffic sites and set up play areas.
The goal of the mobilization was to get deserving evacuees to the United States as quickly as possible and to stop potential security risks between evacuees and other evacuees who did not meet the requirements to be relocated to the United States before touching their feet. United States.
Refugee groups criticize that the evacuation effort of the Biden administration is too late and too unpredictable. The precipitation of air bridges after Kabul fell has caused a minority of people among the evacuees to reach thousands of miles from Kabul airport before the Americans detected problems, including some evacuees with security concerns.
In one case, a red flag appeared in the case of an evacuee when he was halfway between two of the overseas transit sites, said another U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for discuss the procedure. In a relatively small number of cases, U.S. transit sites abroad are also dealing with other evacuees who require further investigation or who lie or destroy their identification in hopes of qualifying for the evacuation. immigration, said the U.S. official.
Some who managed to overcome the Taliban and U.S. crowds and controls at the airport boarded planes and arrived at transit sites, with no apparent eligibility for the relocation of the United States as an Afghan at risk, said the official.
Most Afghan evacuees are clearing processes in a matter of days at large transit sites that U.S. government employees quickly set up at military bases in Qatar, Germany and Italy, along with smaller sites elsewhere. . These evacuees fly through Philadelphia or Washington Dulles airports to resettle in the United States.
Other U.S. officials have said they expect most or all Afghans whose cases may initially raise red flags or questions to pass a subsequent review.
Eligible Afghans include those who worked for the U.S. government or advocates for women, journalists or other people vulnerable to their role in Afghan civil society.
The U.S. official who unveiled the Kosovo plan said the transit centers “provide a safe place for several groups … to complete their paperwork while we conduct security tests before they continue to their final destination in the states.” United States or another country “.
The United States will use a military camp, Bondsteel, which houses the U.S. military near the capital Kosovo for monitoring and prosecuting evacuees destined for resettlement in the United States, the U.S. official said. One place on the road that once housed road crews is to temporarily house evacuees bound for other NATO countries, under NATO management and care.
Each of Germany and Italy have set deadlines of no more than two weeks for U.S. prosecution of an evacuee on its territory.
Kosovo has been considered an ally of the United States since the United States led a 1999 NATO air campaign against Serbian forces that brutalized Kosovo civilians. The two Afghan evacuation sites sit along a road named after the late son of President Joe Biden, Beau Biden, who helped train local judges and prosecutors after the Kosovo war.
Kosovo leaders have agreed on one-year stays for evacuees, with the possibility of extensions. The Prime Minister of Kosovo and other officials attended the airport to welcome the first Afghan evacuees.
The majority of the people of Kosovo are Muslim, like the Afghans, although the constitution of Kosovo establishes it as a secular state. Kosovo has a substantial minority of Orthodox Christian Serbs.
Refugee organizations say the U.S. has not been open or efficient in treating evacuees in transit centers abroad.
“There is only a surprising lack of transparency on the part of the administration about what is happening, who is there … who to contact if there are problems” for evacuees at the sites, said Adam Bates, a lawyer for the International Project of Refugee Assistance, one of the leading American refugees working with Afghans seeking to flee the Taliban.
He spoke before the Biden administration revealed its plans for the siege of Kosovo.