Long Delays for Afghan Resettlements Serve as Warning for Ukrainians

The Biden administration hasn’t allowed any Afghans into the U.S. through a program unveiled last summer to help those working for American aid groups and companies, a delay due to strict requirements and system backlogs that signals potential challenges for Ukrainians hoping to reach the U.S.

The Biden administration has pledged to take in 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing the war. While it has yet to announce the legal criteria it will use to resettle them, many are expected to enter the U.S. as refugees.

The administration’s announcement of the priority refugee program for Afghans, as violence surged there last August, reflected the recognition that a range of people were in danger for their association with the U.S. The move created a path for Afghans working for U.S. contractors, nonprofits and news media to apply for entry as refugees.

But in the ensuing eight months, no Afghans who applied through the new priority program have been admitted to the U.S.

 “On paper, there is a program, there is some sort of nominal process,” said Sunil Varghese, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project, a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to refugees. “But it doesn’t seem like there’s the political will to make this a big, robust thing.”

The applicants’ fates contrast with those of the Afghans who managed to make it through the crowds at Kabul’s airport and scramble onto U.S. military flights. Some 75,000 were brought to the U.S. and admitted with a temporary status called humanitarian parole.

It takes 12 to 18 months or longer to process a refugee for resettlement, a State Department spokesman said, and the administration is working within that timeline. Refugee organizations say that timeline is unrealistic, as most cases will take two or three years unless certain steps are taken to speed up processing and clear backlogs.

The process begins once an applicant leaves Afghanistan and can notify the U.S. that they have reached a third country, such as Pakistan. Thousands of Afghans are waiting in Pakistan or elsewhere abroad after escaping on private charter flights out of Afghanistan last year.

Countries hosting Afghans temporarily, including Albania,Mexico, have become hubs where many are now stranded, facing long waits for their cases to be processed. In the interim, work options are limited, leaving many financially dependent on host governments and their sponsors, including aid groups and former employers.

Elpida Home in Thessaloniki, Greece, is one of the organizations supporting hundreds of Afghans evacuated last year. It says most Afghans are looking for other resettlement options after learning that it would take at least two years to process their applications to enter the U.S. as refugees.

Canada, in contrast, processes applications within a few months, and some of the group’s Afghan guests already have begun to be resettled there. But only certain people qualify to apply.

“People thought they’d move on in two or three weeks,” said Jumana Abo Oxa, Elpida Home’s mental-health care manager. “People are going through emotional hurricanes. They’ve lost everything. They have families stuck in Afghanistan that can’t leave.”

One of the group’s evacuees waiting to be admitted to the U.S., an Afghan woman who worked on women’s rights in western Afghanistan, said it was hard to reconcile being unable to work to support her family, including her frail mother back home. She worried about her nieces after the Taliban had barred girls from school and said they might now be forced into marriage instead of finishing their education.

“Suddenly we lost everything of the past 20 years, and it has been a shock,” she said. “It is difficult to understand the situation.”

Meanwhile, Elpida Home has also begun assisting refugees from Ukraine.

The State Department said that about 16,000 Afghans have applied to the priority program world-wide but that all of their applications are still in early stages. The department said it is ramping up processing efforts and has sent staff to Albania, where one of many clusters of Afghans who were privately evacuated from Kabul have landed, to complete pre-interview processing for applicants in that country.

Everyone seeking to come to the U.S. as a refugee must undergo an interview to determine whether they qualify individually. The government hasn’t yet sent out refugee officers to interview Afghan refugees eligible for the priority program.

The Biden administration more recently created a separate, expedited refugee program that it says will allow the government to interview and process refugees within 30 days. The program is mostly targeted for Afghans who served as U.S. Embassy staff and a narrow group of others.

Resettlement experts said it might be easier to approve Ukrainians than Afghans. The U.S. has a robust military presence in neighboring Poland, where refugee processing is likely to take place, and vetting is expected to be faster.

“When it comes to Ukraine, we can only pray the Biden administration takes a different path than it took with the Afghans,” said Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, a Jewish resettlement organization in the U.S.

Still, the Afghan experience is instructive for those coming from Ukraine. The U.S. refugee admissions program, which former President Donald Trump substantially shrunk during his time in office, still hasn’t fully rebuilt its staff and infrastructure to previous levels.

Though President Biden set this year’s refugee admissions ceiling at 125,000 people, the government has resettled only 6,494 people from October through the end of February, government data show.

The surge in Afghan arrivals has strained other resources, such as affordable housing, while overburdened resettlement case workers are stretched thin. Families are instead relying on the charity of locals to navigate life in the U.S.

Brian McKeon, the deputy secretary of State for management and resources, provided few details to reporters this week about the administration’s plan to admit 100,000 Ukrainians.

“The 100,000 number is a combination of things: some people coming through the normal refugee program, some people coming through family reunification visas and I think some other ideas that DHS is working on to provide temporary safe haven to people,” he said.