After the Biden administration botched the evacuation of troops from Afghanistan in 2021, it seized upon the opportunity to do what it did best: welcome tens of thousands of third-world people into the US with little or no vetting. So far, about 200,000 Afghanis have been allowed in.
The argument for their admission was intended to be heart-rending. As the narrative went, these people had almost to a man been our steadfast supporters during our long fruitless war there. It would be criminal to abandon them to the barbarous Taliban who would surely wreak revenge. We had to let in as many as possible, because otherwise “it just wouldn’t be right.”
The Center for Immigration Studies has published a well-researched description of the immigration status of the roughly 200,000 Afghans admitted in the months and years following America’s withdrawal. They fall into three groups:
Allies. These were Afghan citizens who had worked in some capacity for the US during the war as translators, etc. They have been admitted under one of two different “Special Immigration Visas (SIVs),” one for permanent residence, one temporary. Of the 200,000 total, only about 68,654 Afghans were considered allies and granted SIVs.
Refugees. These are persons “unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted.” A total of about 28,145 Afghans have by now been admitted in that category. Although Biden raised the cap on refugees, he used it relatively seldom, electing instead to avoid red tape by falling back on “humanitarian parole.” See below.
Migrants. These are ordinary Afghanis who just wanted to get out of Afghanistan — for which few would blame them. There being no legitimate category to justify their wholesale admission, Biden essentially made one up. He dusted off the “Humanitarian Parole” program, a little-used State Department program intended for very limited and specific individuals. Instead, Biden made it widely available, to Afghanis and many others. Of the 200,000, the overwhelming majority were parolees. They are supposed to remain here temporarily, but we’ll see.
So, the much-discussed”allies” have amounted to relative few, less than a third of the total let in. The rest have been admitted as refugees and parolees, with no discernible qualifications and very dubious vetting.
For more, see CIS.org.