[UNHCR] The Afghan War: The US Refugee Policy Moving Backwards?

Written by Buzzfeed

The Biden Administration is unprepared towards consequences of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, increasing the number of refugees, among which are American citizens.

$2.26 trillion, estimated by the Brown University’s Costs of War project, is the full cost of US investment in the Afghan war over the past two decades. It is nearly twice of the infrastructure bill the Senate passed last week, which cost $1.2 trillion and was dubbed as “the biggest infrastructure package in decades.”

Biden’s decision to withdraw the US troops from Afghanistan seems to relieve a huge burden off the American’s shoulder, but evidently the Biden administration has not considered the consequences thoroughly, leaving millions of refugees, Afghan allies and even American citizens behind. 

The Biden Administration seems unprepared towards the issues relating to the evacuation of personnels from Afghanistan. As described by a Democratic figure, Seth Moulton, it was a “moral and operational failure” that the US had struggled to evacuate Afghan allies and US citizens from the country. So far, up to 13000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan since the US military lift began on Aug.14, including US citizens, Special Immigrant Visa applicants and their families. However, thousands of translators and activists still remain in an abandoned state with few given refugees. With little management, the evacuation flight at the  Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul was conducted on a first-come, first-served basis. As a result, thousands of Afghanistan people rushed towards the airport out of desperation and the hope to flee the country. It was even observed that people had to put their children on the top of cars to protect them from the crowd, but some had witnessed children being crushed to death in the chaos. As thousands of Americans are waiting to be evacuated, they are stuck in Afghanistan, and are afraid to go to the airport to secure a flight due to the dangerous scene. 

Such tragedies could be attributed to the lack of management of the Biden administration, and the Taliban rule in Afghanistan is very likely to exacerbate the current refugee issues in the country. If not tackled decisively, the consequences of the military withdrawal might undone Biden’s efforts in rebuilding the refugee program, which was previously decimated by the Trump administration. Disappointedly, the United States shows no clear interest in improving the efforts in combating refugee abuse in Afghanistan. During the press conference in the UNHCR this morning, when asked about measures to address the increasing likelihood of abuse and exploitation of Afghan refugees, the delegate of the United States responded with an ambiguous stance that, “with Biden pulling back his troops, this will allow Afghanistan more time to deal with the issues. In the long run, we hope the issues would die down,” Does this mean that the United States will leave the refugee crisis in Afghanistan to its own? With that, the United States is again moving backwards regarding the issue of refugee protection, even as the delegate exclaimed that “the Biden administration is opening up borders and accepting more refugees, hence we could say that compared to the Trump administration, we are progressing.”


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