U.S.: Afghan evacuees who fail first screening Kosovo-bound
An ardent U.S. ally, Kosovo, has agreed to take in Afghanistan evacuees who fail to clear initial rounds of screening and host them for up to a year, a U.S. official said Saturday, in an intended temporary fix to one of the lingering security problems of
the frantic U.S. evacuation from the Kabul airport.
The U.S. plan is likely to face objections from refu- gee advocates, who already complain of a lack of pub- lic disclosure and uncertain legal jurisdiction in the Biden administration’s use of over- seas screening sites. Those quickly set-up overseas tran- sit sites are still operating near or at full speed to verify eligibility and look for secu- rity issues among thousands of Afghans and smaller numbers of Americans flown out of Taliban-held Afghanistan between Aug. 15 and Aug. 31. The U.S. official spoke to
the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the plan. It was the first disclosure of what the U.S. intends to do with Afghans
or other evacuees who have failed to clear initial rounds of screening or whose cases otherwise require more processing.
The U.S. Embassy in
Kosovo in a statement later Saturday stressed that the arrangement did not mean Kosovo was taking evacuees who had been deemed inel-
igible for admission to the United States. “Some appli- cants are still in the process of obtaining needed docu- ments and providing all the information required to qual- ify under U.S. law for imme- diate entry,” the embassy statement said.
The Biden administration had resisted months of urging from some refu- gee organizations and veterans groups to bring former Afghan allies or others most vulnerable to targeting
by the Taliban to American territory for security screen-
ing and other processing. Several other countries for a time balked at temporar- ily hosting the United States’ Afghan evacuees, for fear of getting stuck with the Amer
icans’ security problems. That all presented major obstacles in U.S. preparations for evacuation of vulnerable Afghans, even before Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15.
The Taliban’s lightning conquest of Afghanistan set off the chaotic U.S.-military airlift out of the Kabul airport.
The administration within days of the Taliban takeover mobilized thousands of U.S. troops, diplomats, law enforcement agents, border and transportation workers, volunteers and others for screening, processing and caring for evacuees at more than a half-dozen U.S. naval stations, airfields and army bases in Europe and Asia. Officials and volunteers handed stuffed animals and toys to arriving children at many of the transit sites, and set up play areas.