Today, Explained - After the Afghan evacuation

Episode Date: August 31, 2021

The United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan is officially over. Vox’s Nicole Narea explains what’s next for the more than 100,000 refugees evacuated from Kabul. This episode was produced by Will Reid and Amina Al-Sadi, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's not every day a war ends. And on Monday, the longest war in the history of the United States ended,

at least in terms of U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan. When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today, I've honored that commitment. Something like 120,000 people, mostly Afghans, were evacuated from the country over the past few weeks. No country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country than we have done.

But what happens to them now? We asked Vox's Nicole Nerea. So the Afghans who worked alongside U.S. forces and Afghan refugees have a long road ahead before they can make a safe and stable life somewhere else. And at this point, the U.S. immigration system is kind of making that harder. And as we established on the show last week, and as many people probably know, these Afghan refugees are flying to military bases across the world. They're flying to Germany. They're flying to all sorts of places. Where are they all going to end up? Eventually, they're supposed to be ending up at army bases in the U.S., and then they'll be transferred to locations across the country that will be their final

destinations where they'll settle. But I think at this point, it's pretty much an open question as to how long it takes those people to get there. And in terms of people who weren't evacuated by the U.S. or coalition forces and who have fled the country on their own, some of those people may be languishing in neighboring countries like Iran and Pakistan and Turkey for a long time. Video obtained by CBS News shows hundreds of evacuees waiting in a hangar at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha. Several of them describe conditions as hot, crowded, and dirty. With thousands of at-risk Afghans and American citizens flooding in so fast, the U.S. is searching for other countries to send people for screening. So we have no idea right now how many of these 100,000 plus refugees are meant to sort of settle here in the United States and how many are meant to be settled elsewhere?

It's very much of a moving target at this point. And I think a lot of it will depend on U.S. policy and also the policy of, you know, European leaders who have already said that they're not really interested in taking in as many Afghans as they did, you know, in 2015, where there was a major refugee crisis with Syria. So these Afghans at this point don't really have a destination. Well, let's talk about U.S. policy, since a lot of this will depend on U.S. policy. What are the next steps for the majority of these refugees who are coming to the United States? We're talking about two major groups of people here, and it's worth making that distinction. There's Afghans who will receive a special immigrant visa or an SIV. Those are Afghans who work directly with the U.S. government, many as interpreters for the U.S. military.

But then there's this other group, everyone else who might be at risk of reprisal from the Taliban, but aren't eligible for the SIV program. And it's not clear at this point how many of those people have been evacuated or have fled to third countries on their own. Okay, well, let's talk about the SIVs first. These are visas that are given to people who have helped the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan. Do we know how many people have or are trying to get those visas right now? So about 20,000 people are in the SIV application pipeline, but if you also count their spouses and children, it's about 88,000 people by some estimates. Wow. It's not clear at this point how many of them are currently waiting abroad for more processing,

but there are concerns that they could remain there for months before being transferred to the U.S. There's basically a huge backlog in SIV application processing that was sort of brought on by the Trump administration, who actively stonewalled the program. When I was there in the White House working on these issues, it was nothing but increasing restrictions on immigration and restricting refugee admissions. These offices with resources that were gutted during the Trump administration, where many of us who actually... The Biden administration so far has only been able to process about 5,000 of them since he took office. But the U.S. has started to allow some of

them to come to the U.S. before they're issued a visa through what is called parole, which is kind of temporary permission to enter the U.S., but they still have to undergo a background check beforehand. And we heard from an Afghan interpreter who did make it to the United States a few weeks ago on the show. My work put my entire family in danger. And that was the time that I decided to leave. My family is still in danger. He explained how difficult it was to get that SIV approved. He did mention that Congress was trying to expedite that process, but it's still kind of

tough. Has that changed at all in the past few weeks? Not particularly. So the Biden administration is surging resources towards processing these visas and getting SIVs screened for security purposes so that they can be brought to the U.S. to complete their application process. But it's still a really arduous process. And at this point, the only real solution is to bring those people to the U.S. on parole so that they can continue processing here rather than languishing abroad for months on end.

And another big issue our interpreter guests told us about was that a lot of interpreters couldn't even get to Kabul to get to the airport, to get processed, to leave the country. Do we have any idea how many people who were in the SIV pipeline didn't make it out of Afghanistan at this point? Yeah, we really don't know at this point. We know that 117,000 people or so have been evacuated, but the U.S. government hasn't broken down the numbers of exactly who those people are. You know, it could be U.S. citizens, permanent residents, Afghan SIVs, and other vulnerable

groups. But as of last week, officials said that fewer than half of the then 100,000 evacuees were SIV holders. And I guess we have no idea what will happen to those who didn't make it out. Yeah, and I think that's sort of a point of criticism for the Biden administration in terms of not trying to get those people out sooner. We've worked intensely to evacuate and relocate Afghans who worked alongside us

and are at particular risk of reprisal. We've gotten many out, but many are still there. We will keep working to help them. Our commitment to them has no deadline. Let's talk about the other huge group of refugees, the ones who don't have SIVs or aren't eligible for SIVs. Yeah, so there are other routes for people to get to the United States.

There's a program called the P2 program, which is for people who worked for a U.S. government-funded program, U.S.-based media or NGOs. They have to be referred by a U.S.-based employer in order to apply. But with that program, which is part of the U.S. refugee program, you kind of run into the issue of the kind of cuts that we've seen in recent years to the number of refugees that we take in. You might remember that under Trump, the refugee cap was cut from over 100,000 to just 15,000 last year, which is a historic low. Biden will turn Minnesota into a refugee camp. And he said that. Overwhelming public resources, overcrowding schools, and inundating your

hospitals. You know that. It's already there. It's a disgrace what they've done to your state. When Biden took office, he initially refused to raise the refugee cap, saying that it would be impossible for U.S. refugee agencies to actually resettle anywhere close to the maximum number of refugees. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the decision completely and utterly unacceptable, saying Biden promised to welcome immigrants and people voted for him based on that promise. matters because it impacts not only the number of people who can get refugee status, but also funding for programs for refugees. You know, refugee resettlement agencies depend on that number in order to get federal funding. And, you know, they've really been decimated over the last

four years. More than 100 resettlement offices closed under Trump and a lot of people were laid off. So they're really at this point in the process of rebuilding. What more could President Biden be doing to help these refugees? Biden has said that he'll raise the refugee cap up from $62,500 this year to $125,000. And that could happen in the fall. But that's something that we're waiting on in September or October. And another thing we'll be watching is whether he allows private groups in the U.S. like nonprofits to sponsor the resettlement of refugees. And that could potentially free up more spots for Afghans. But I'm guessing some people won't like it if he does that. Yeah. So while Biden is receiving a lot of heat on the left

for not taking in more Afghan refugees and SAVs, you have to also remember that he's facing opposition now from Republicans who have been raising concerns about letting in tens of thousands of Afghans in the aftermath of all this. So it was not surprising to see the ex-president demonize these Afghan allies in a statement yesterday saying, how many thousands of terrorists have

been airlifted out of Afghanistan and into neighborhoods around the world? How many terrorists will Joe Biden bring into America? Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of potentially unvetted refugees from Afghanistan? We will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our country in coming months, probably in your neighborhood. And over the next decade, that number may swell to the millions. So first we invade and then we're invaded. It is always the same. Thank you. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket.

Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com. Ramp.com. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Nicole, let's talk a bit about the politics of resettling Afghan refugees. The United States was in this country for 20 years waging war, left in a bit of a hurry.

Things were falling apart. You would think the whole country would be open to resettling the people who helped the United States out in its 20-year war, not completely the case. Yeah, I mean, it's worth noting here that public opinion polling has shown that there is broad support across the political spectrum for resettling SAVs in the U.S., 90% of Democrats and 76% of Republicans. And in the cities where these Afghans would likely be resettled, attitudes towards refugees are generally pretty welcoming, and most of them are Democrats.

So to the extent that Republicans are trying to make this an issue, it's not really in touch with what the public is saying. That said, early on, you saw Republicans especially trying to sort of score political points off of Biden by criticizing how he was handling the evacuations of our Afghan allies. You'd have to conclude these guys couldn't organize a two-car funeral. But recently, there have kind of been rubblings that Republicans won't be as interested in taking in Afghans. And the White House has sort of been responding to that by expectation setting around how many Afghans the U.S. can absorb. What we are trying to do is get our muscles working again, both in our systems and the incredible refugee groups that are working on welcoming refugees from around the country

and working on getting our vetting processes and systems around the world that need to be in good shape in order to welcome refugees, to get as many as we can. But I have not had a conversation with him about raising the cap beyond the 125. As you said, I'm happy to do that. What's the precedent for this kind of thing? I mean, this isn't the United States' first rodeo. Yeah, so the U.S. has completed these kinds of mass evacuations and resettlement of refugees before. We did it after the Vietnam War in 1975. I'm convinced that the vast majority of Americans today want these people to have another opportunity to escape the probability of death.

The U.S. also evacuated Kurds from northern Iraq in 1996. If it should come to a situation where their lives were in jeopardy because the security situation deteriorated, that they would probably need to evacuate. So their lives and the lives of their family members are in fact threatened at this time. And for their own personal safety, it's prudent to get them out of the country. Then ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in 1999, and those people actually came directly to the mainland U.S. But the last time the U.S. kind of pledged to take in large amounts of refugees was in 2015 after the Syria crisis. The president has directed his team to consider how we can further scale up our response.

And one thing that the United States can do is to begin to admit more Syrian refugees into the United States. President Obama wanted to resettle around 10,000 Syrian refugees, but he faced huge blowback from the GOP, especially Republican governors. There were more than 30 Republican governors that said that they wouldn't take in Syrian refugees in their states. And it was actually something that then presidential candidate Donald Trump latched onto on the campaign trail. And it became a major campaign issue in 2016. And he was kind of playing into the false rumors about Syrians being behind the Paris terror attacks.

They're being put all over the country just like they want to be. And who knows? You know, we talk about Trojan horse. We talk about Trojan horse. And maybe it's a Trojan horse and maybe it's not. You know, the comparison isn't really perfect to the current situation. In the case of Afghanistan, you have a lot of people who work directly for the U.S. military or U.S. organizations. And that's obviously a group that's largely perceived as sympathetic. And that might not have been the case with these sort of Syrian refugees. But it does sort of show how in recent years,

the refugee program has become so politicized, even though there once was really a huge bipartisan consensus on this. Well, one of the Republican talking points I've seen advanced by people like Stephen Miller is that we just sort of like open the floodgates. How do we even know that these are the people who helped the United States? Have we forgotten so quickly that the 9-11 terrorists were granted visas by our State Department? Does that argument have any legitimacy? So I think underlying that argument is this assumption on the part of Republicans that

these refugees aren't being vetted. And that's just not the case. They have to undergo extensive security screening before they're allowed to come to the U.S. But sort of on the broader question here in terms of like whether the U.S. should be allowing people who didn't directly help U.S. forces. I think there is sort of an argument to be made that the U.S. has a responsibility not only to take in those people, but also people who are directly harmed by the U.S.'s decision to withdraw. And, you know, that might include women's rights

activists, LGBTQ activists, and others who are sort of made vulnerable by the situation. So, you know, I think there's just sort of made vulnerable by the situation. So, you know, I think there's just sort of a difference in philosophy there among Republicans and Democrats in that respect. Okay, so that argument doesn't have the most legitimacy. Are there others that Republicans are making that do? What else are they saying? So I think they're also just trying to sort of make a racist appeal to people who want to maintain a white European majority population in the U.S. as they sort of fear the diversification of the country. Is the mass migration of Afghan men to America really a good idea? Good for your wife, your daughter? The left will call us racist for opposing any amount of migration at all,

since they believe in open borders. But we have to be brave enough to put up with their ridiculous aspersions and brave enough to discuss cultural differences that matter. I think there's just this like concern that Afghans won't be able to assimilate and like there are programs set up to help them do that and to get them self-sufficient within six months of arriving in the U.S. So yeah, I just don't think there's really any legitimate arguments coming from the GOP on this. Okay, yeah, I just don't think there's really any legitimate arguments coming from the GOP on this. Okay, so we're not exactly rolling out the red carpet as a country, but these refugees are still coming. What's life like when they get here? I mean, certainly,

like, the communities where these people are eventually going to end up will be welcoming and, you know, have committed to taking in Afghan refugees. But the refugee resettlement program in the U.S. just generally is facing challenges that we've already touched on. It's been harder to resettle people during the pandemic, but there's also just a resource problem here. Refugee resettlement agencies are rebuilding after Trump, and they're also due to a nationwide affordable housing shortage, having difficulty finding accommodations for these Afghans. So there's just a lot of programs and issues that go into getting these people on their feet in the U.S. And they're unfortunately at this point under-resourced.

So if an Afghan refugee makes it into the United States, he or she will face innumerable challenges. But that's if they even legitimately make it in. Yeah, and at this point, you know, it's really not clear how long they might have to wait abroad before they're allowed in. So it could be a very long wait. Nicole Nerea reports on immigration at Vox.

You can find her reporting at Vox.com. Today's episode was produced by Will Reed with help from Amina Alsadi. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained. you