FORT BLISS, Texas (AP) – The Biden administration on Friday offered the first public look inside a U.S. military base examining Afghans who have moved to Afghanistan amid questions about how the government cares for and examines refugees.
“All Afghans who are here with us have suffered a harrowing journey and are now facing the real challenges of acclimatizing to life in the United States,” State Department official Liz Gracon told reporters.
The three-hour tour of Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, Texas was the first time the media was granted wide access to one of the eight U.S. military facilities that house Afghans. .
But even so, journalists, including those from The Associated Press, were not allowed to talk to evacuees or spend more than a few minutes in the areas where they were gathered, and military officials cited “privacy concerns. “.
About 10,000 Afghan evacuees remain at the base while undergoing medical and security checks before being resettled in the United States. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department described the operation as a “historic” and “unprecedented” effort to facilitate the relocation of a large number of refugees in less than a month.
On Friday, Afghan children with soccer and basketballs played outside big white tents. Families walked down a dirt road with piles of plastic food containers stacked under their chins and Coca-Cola cans under their arms. A young woman, who was still wearing dirty clothes, cried in the middle of the road after the food spilled and the soldiers tried to help her. Inside the containers, during which the refugees had spent about 15 minutes queuing in the sun, were traditional Afghan meals of basmati rice and stew.
The U.S. government spent two weeks building what it calls a village to house Afghans at the base. It is a large area with dozens of air-conditioned tents that are used as bedrooms and dining rooms on exfoliating dirt land, a landscape that in a way resembled parts of the homeland where they fled.
According to the program called “Operation Allied Welcome,” some 50,000 Afghans are expected to be admitted to the United States, including translators, drivers and others who helped the U.S. military during the 20-year war and who feared the retaliation of the Taliban after its rapidity. he took power last month.
About 130,000 were airlifted from Afghanistan in one of the largest mass evacuations in U.S. history. Many of these people are still in traffic and are undergoing security testing and checks in other countries, including Germany, Spain, Kuwait and Qatar.
Members of Congress have questioned whether the projection is comprehensive enough. Many of the Afghans who worked for the U.S. government have already been subjected to years of verification before they were hired and, again, to apply for a special immigrant visa for U.S. allies.
Once released from the base, they will be assisted by the resettlement agencies in charge of placing the refugees. Agencies prioritize places where refugees already have families in the United States or there are Afghan immigrant communities with resources to help them start a new life in a foreign country. People with U.S. citizenship or green cards can leave when they arrive at the base, according to a State Department representative.
If other evacuees, whose release depends on compliance with the mandatory health protocols of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, decide to leave before the full resettlement period, they can be used against them.
So far, no one in Fort Bliss has been released for resettlement.
The Pentagon has said all evacuees are tested for COVID-19 on arrival at Dulles International Airport on the outskirts of Washington.
The Biden administration also uses the base to house thousands of immigrant children, mostly from Central America, who have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on their own, without adults. Children stay there until they can meet with relatives who are already in the United States or with a sponsor, usually a family friend, or sent to a licensed center.
___
Associated Press writer Julie Watson contributed to this San Diego report.
___
Farnoush Amiri is a member of the body of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit services program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on covert issues.