Biden Plans to Relocate Afghans Who Helped U.S. Military

(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration plans to relocate an unspecified number of Afghans who assisted the U.S. military’s invasion and occupation of the country before American forces withdraw later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Afghans, described as interpreters and translators, will be moved to a third country while they wait for the U.S. to approve visas for them and their families, a senior administration official said. They are people who are easily identifiable as U.S. partners because they worked on the front lines with American troops, the official said.

The New York Times reported earlier Thursday that they number in the thousands. Some of them have been in the process of applying for what’s called a “Special Immigrant Visa” for years, the official said, and their advocates have raised alarm that after the American withdrawal -- the deadline is Sept. 11 -- they will be vulnerable to reprisals from the Taliban and other former U.S. enemies.

The White House is expected to release more information on its plan later Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter. Both asked not to be identified ahead of an official announcement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said there are about 18,000 Afghans in the process of obtaining an SIV. But advocates in the U.S. say there are thousands more who should be evacuated from the country, including former U.S. military contractors and Afghans who work for human-rights groups and other non-governmental organizations.

A spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council had no immediate comment.

The Biden administration has come under increasing pressure from Congress, including lawmakers in both parties who served in the region, to implement a plan to evacuate Afghan allies from the country. Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Marine, said Thursday that he and other lawmakers have been in touch with the White House about the relocation plan but “they haven’t provided any details to this point.”

“Today, we have made a promise to people who will die,” he said. “And tomorrow, we need to make this promise to allies in the future -- or else we’ll never have anybody to support our troops overseas.”

Matt Zeller, a fellow at the Truman Center and a retired Army major who served in Afghanistan and arranged for his interpreter to immigrate to the U.S., said advocates for U.S. Afghan allies will hold a protest outside the White House on July 1 to pressure Biden to evacuate more people from the country.

He has publicly called for Afghans to be relocated to Guam, a U.S. territory, while they wait for visas.

The Taliban has said that Afghans who assisted the U.S. have nothing to fear after the American withdrawal and should remain in the country.

“We viewed them as our foes when they were directly standing in the ranks of our enemies, but when they abandon enemy ranks and opt to live as ordinary Afghans in their homeland, they will not face any issues, hence they should not remain fearful and should continue living a serene life in their own country,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said in a statement this month.

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