U.S. evacuation flight brings over 200 Afghans to start new life
Special visas allow workers to bring families along
AFGHANISTAN (CBS) - Some 200 Afghans were set to begin new lives in the United States on Friday (July 30) as an airlift got under way for translators and others who risk Taliban retaliation because they worked for the U.S. government during its 20-year war in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
The operation to evacuate U.S.-affiliated Afghans and family members comes as the U.S. troop pullout nears completion and government forces struggle to repulse Taliban advances.
The first planeload of 200 evacuees arrived at Fort Lee, a military base in Virginia, for final paperwork processing and medical examinations.
The Afghans are being granted Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) entitling them to bring their families. As many as 50,000 or more people ultimately could be evacuated in "Operation Allies Refuge".
The first group of arrivals is among some 2,500 SIV applicants and family members who have almost completed the process, clearing them for evacuation, said Russ Travers, Biden's deputy homeland security adviser.
The Afghans were expected to remain at Fort Lee for up to seven days before joining relatives or host families across the country.
The evacuees underwent "rigorous background checks" and COVID-19 tests, Travers added. Some were already vaccinated, and the rest will be offered jabs at Fort Lee.
The surging violence in Afghanistan has created serious problems for many SIV applicants whose paperwork is in the pipeline amid reports - denied by the Taliban - that some have been killed by vengeful insurgents.
Some applicants are unable to get to the capital Kabul to complete the required steps at the U.S. embassy or reach their flights.
The SIV program has been plagued by long processing times and bureaucratic knots - which the Biden administration and Congress are working to undo - that led to a backlog of some 20,000 applications. The State Department has added staff to handle them.
