US: Kosovo will host some Afghan evacuees
The United States intends to send Afghanistan evacuees who fail to clear initial screenings to Kosovo, which has agreed to house them for up to a year for additional processing, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Saturday.
The U.S. plan is likely to face objections from refugee advocates, who already complain of a lack of public disclosure and uncertain legal jurisdiction in the Biden administration’s use of overseas transit sites to screen many of roughly 120,000 Afghans, Americans and others evacuated from Taliban-held Afghanistan.
The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plan. It was the first disclosure of what the U.S. intends to do for Afghans or other evacuees who have failed to clear initial rounds of screening or whose cases otherwise require more time.
Most Afghan evacuees are clearing processing in a matter of days at large transit sites that U.S. government employees set up quickly at military bases in Qatar, Germany and Italy, along with smaller sites elsewhere. Those evacuees then fly through Philadelphia or Washington Dulles airports for resettling in the United States.
Other U.S. officials have said they expect most or all Afghans whose cases may initially raise red flags to pass further screening.
The U.S. official said the transit centers “provide a safe place for diverse groups ... to complete their paperwork while we conduct security screenings before they continue to their final destination in the United States or in another country.”
The U.S. will use a military camp, Bondsteel, that houses the U.S. army near the Kosovo capital for the further screening and processing of evacuees.