KABUL (Anadolu) – The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has rejected applications from hundreds of Afghans seeking temporary entry into the United States on humanitarian grounds, reports say.
Media outlets have reported that hundreds of Afghans who were separated from their families and were threatened by the Taliban in recent weeks had applied for humanitarian visas to move to the United States, but their requests were rejected.
USCIS has received more than 35,000 applications for humanitarian visas since the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in August.
USCIS spokeswoman Victoria Palmer said this week, the department accepted more than 140 applications conditionally and rejected about 470.
Immigrant rights activists have criticized the administration of President Joe Biden for not fulfilling its promise to help Afghan citizens after Washington’s withdrawal.
Last August, the Taliban movement took full control of Afghanistan during the final stage of a U.S. military withdrawal from the country.
Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani blamed the United States for the collapse of his government earlier this year, saying Washington sidelined him during the so-called peace talks with the Taliban.
“It became an American issue, not an Afghan issue,” Ghani said during an interview with BBC’s Today Program on Thursday.
“I was painted in total black… we were never given the opportunity to sit down with them (the Taliban),” he added. “They erased us.”
The U.S. reached a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 on the withdrawal of 12,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the Taliban’s halting of their attacks on foreign forces. Under the deal, former US president Donald Trump’s administration promised to bring the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to zero by May 2021. U.S. President Joe Biden pushed that date back to September 11.
The government of Afghanistan rapidly collapsed on August 15 in the face of lightning advances by the Taliban amid the foreign withdrawal. On September 7, the Taliban announced the formation of a caretaker government in Afghanistan.
Ghani said he fled Kabul due to his security team’s incapability to defend him, stressing that he had no idea that he was going to leave the country.
“On the morning of that day, I had no inkling that by late afternoon I would be leaving,” Ghani said. “[My] national security adviser and the chief of the President Protective Service (PPS) came and said the PPS has collapsed.”