Nearly two years after the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan and thousands of Afghan allies were left behind, a veterans-led organization and the State Department renewed their agreement to work together to continue relocating Afghans through 2024.
The renewed agreement indicates that the relocation work is far from over -- but also, the organization's leader said, that the Biden administration is committed to seeing it through to the end.
"To me, it's a message that they're in this for the long haul," Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and president of #AfghanEvac, an umbrella organization for hundreds of nongovernmental groups that helped with the evacuation, told Military.com on Monday. "They're not trying to make this go away."
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VanDiver also expressed hope that the public accolades from top officials would reinvigorate the veterans and other volunteers who have been "breaking themselves" trying to help their Afghan allies.
VanDiver was speaking ahead of a Monday afternoon ceremony at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., where he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a memorandum of understanding that extends the #AfghanEvac coalition's partnership with the State Department through December 2024.
The Biden administration has weathered criticism from across the political spectrum that it failed to plan for a worst-case scenario as the U.S. military withdrew from America's longest war, leading to a scramble to evacuate as many vulnerable Afghans as possible after the Taliban overran Kabul.
While the 2021 evacuation airlifted tens of thousands of Afghans out, thousands more who helped the U.S. military during the war were estimated to be left behind.
During the evacuation, veterans of the war rushed to navigate their interpreters and other Afghans who helped the U.S. military onto evacuation flights. Those veterans have continued their efforts for the Afghans left behind, with VanDiver saying Monday they are still inundated daily with pleas from Afghans looking to make their way to the U.S.
Since the withdrawal ended in August 2021, more than 24,000 Afghans have been relocated to the U.S. or other countries, Blinken said Monday.
During Monday's ceremony, the State Department credited the partnership with #AfghanEvac for several improvements in relocation efforts, including streamlining the process to apply for what's known as a Special Immigrant Visa and creating a pathway to reunify families that were separated during the evacuation.
"Many of you are veterans," Blinken told the coalition members at the ceremony. "This wasn't a question of whether you would help, but how. You've risen to the challenge with incredible integrity and persistence at every step along the way. And quite honestly, it's your expertise, it's your ideas, it's your local networks that have made all the difference."
While Monday was a celebration of accomplishments, VanDiver also stressed that much remains to be done. He called on administration officials to further speed up relocations and streamline the Special Immigrant Visa process, as well as provide more resources for the resettlement agencies helping Afghans find new homes.
Most importantly, VanDiver said Afghans need less uncertainty about their future. That in part means Congress passing the Afghan Adjustment Act, a bill that would give Afghan evacuees legal residency in the U.S. that stalled last year because of some GOP opposition.
"We need to see it reintroduced," he told Military.com. "It's really hard for somebody who doesn't live in Washington, D.C., or doesn't work in these halls of power to believe that Congress is doing anything because they're not seeing things happen. I know that there's a bipartisan effort, people working every day to do it. But we want to see, we want to hear from Congress, we want to hear from people that care about this, that the work is ongoing and Afghans matter and they're going to handle it."
-- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel.
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