Well - you know - some people wouldn’t have a problem if they knew this:
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Afghan girls, still heartbreaking to watch considering recent Taleban diktats
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It’s also worth further noting that a significant portion of those trying to get on the planes out had worked closely with the U.S. military as translators, fixers, domestic help, and administrative staff. One can imagine how the Taliban might treat such people and their families.
That many xenophobic Americans (often those keyboard warriors who scream both “support the troops” and “America First”) classify these people as “unknown non-refugees” is why it’s often left to individual U.S. veterans to help them navigate the broken-by-design maze that is the U.S. immigration bureaucracy to get them status.
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One can - very much like the sorts of people the refugee system was designed to protect, perhaps?
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allowing foreigners into America, what a disaster
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Well, the wrong kind of foreigners, at least… /s
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The law. Refugees need to outside the United States, and must have a referral to the US Refugee Admissions Program. All those who pushed their way onto flights and landed here didn’t have a referral and now are in the United States so they aren’t elibigile for the program. Some of them may also be permanently inadmissible to the US for other reasons, particularly if they are human rights violators (Taliban members). Taliban members would be permanently inadmissible and there is no waiver for that, and yet they can’t be deported to Afghanistan, so if some of them landed here, that creates its own unique little mess of what to do about that.
So their status is a legal mess and they got admitted under Humanitarian Parole, which is a problem because that’s not a perm. resident status, doesn’t come with a SSN, and doesn’t let them work or access a lot of benefits they urgently need. They are hoping for Congress to fix this legislatively. That’s its own ridiculous mess because Congress is paralyzed on issues like this.
It’s a mess, and going back to the OP, wars are a mess and often create a disaster which continues long after the war is over. And this war was like a fractal disaster, where the closer you look at any part of it, the more layers of disaster you see.
What people believe, and what they deserve, is totally irrelevant. Refugee status is a legal status which starts with an official referral to the US Refugee Admissions Program, and has the huge benefit for the refugees that they get a path to perm. residence which includes work authorization and benefits, which are both really critical things to have.
Only to those who don’t give a damn about anyone other than themselves.
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Yes, they should have waited patiently and applied at the embassy or consulate. How awful of them not to obey the law!
Good thing you italicized that “if”, because it’s doing more heavy lifting than one of the USAF C-130s at Kabul airport that day.
Only if you’re playing lawyerball to cover for isolationist xenophobia.
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No they shouldn’t have, but because this whole thing ended in chaos, what happened is what happened and there was no plan for ending the war and no legal framework for them. Again, this is why I say this war was America’s great blunder.
You could argue (quite correctly) that the entire refugee program, as it’s defined, exists for that purpose, by metering out this status to very small numbers of selected people. Vast numbers of Afghans are obviously victims of human rights abuses but the refugee program only allows tiny numbers to get through after years of waiting. Congress created all this…
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The real law
As stateless refugees or asylum seekers, they are protected by the well-established non-refoulement principle and the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
They receive the maximum government benefits and protections in countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[15][16] For example, those that receive green cards under 8 U.S.C. § 1159 can immediately become “non-citizen nationals of the United States” pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1452(b), without needing to meet the requirements of 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a).[17] This allows them to travel with distinct United States passports.[18]j
“Secretary Mayorkas is designating Afghanistan for TPS on the statutory bases of ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions that prevent the country’s nationals from returning in safety“
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Right-wing politicians created both this illegal war and the demonisation of immigrants and refugees (at least ones with darker skin) that maintains the U.S.'s broken-by-design immigration system.
Now they’ve conveniently switched to a right-wing populist stance of xenophobia and isolationism, trying to blame the Dems or government in general for the problem. They’re not fooling anyone, not even those whose jobs require them to assume good faith.
Given that, anyone acting surprised and dismayed that this refugee situation was the outcome when the U.S. pulled out – under any party, quickly or slowly – is not only disingenuous but is also exhibiting … well let’s call it an extreme inability to express empathy.
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The USA is conveniently not a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, under which it would not be able to require people to apply for refugee status from outside the country. States that are party to the convention cannot:
impose penalties on refugees who entered illegally in search of asylum if they present themselves without delay (Article 31), which is commonly interpreted to mean that their unlawful entry and presence ought not to be prosecuted at all
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But - shouldn’t we have let a hundred thousand allies die to make some US racists feel more comfortable?
Think of foreign policy and supporting our troops if you have no heart. Who would ever ally with us if we let people who risked everything to support us just be the next genocide?
Why do these racists hate America?
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Whether in the 20th century or the 21st, the “America First” isolationist crowd would happily desecrate the Statue of Liberty itself to make their point that certain people are not welcome in the U.S. However they choose to disguise or rationalise it with BS (“I’m antiwar!”; “they don’t follow the law!”; “immigrants could be terrorists!”; etc) the though-line remains the same.
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Just because something exists in law doesn’t make it moral or just.
Excusing injustice in the law is a recipe for authoritarianism. Rule of law is just oppression if it’s not attuned to greater concepts like human rights and justice.
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It is of course your right to protest the State Department if you feel strongly about this.
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It appears several folks have forgotten that this was a post about a documentary, not a post about the opinions of any one mutant.
