Afghans and their family members are attempting to get into America through a special visa program for U.S. allies. However, hundreds of thousands are stuck in a State Department backlog that is getting worse 14 months after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden pledged to rescue Afghan interpreters and others who worked with the U.S. during the 20-year occupation in Afghanistan and said in July 2021 that America would “continue to fulfill our promise” to those who “served shoulder-to-shoulder” with U.S. troops.
According to a State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) report: “By May 2022, there was a backlog of 61,888 principal Afghan SIV applicants in process with an additional 325,000 unopened emails in the SIV application email inbox. … It added that in May this year, staff were “still opening unread emails dated from August 2021.”
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