80,000 Afghan US Local Employees Await Special Immigration Visa Evacuation: CNN Report

Nearly 80,000 former local employees of the United States in Afghanistan who qualify for Special Immigrant Visas are awaiting evacuation in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries, as reported by CNN.

The report stated that tens of thousands of former American colleagues recently initiated the process of requesting their visas.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that as of the eighth month of this year, among thousands of applicants for Special Immigrant Visas for the United States, only 10,800 have received leadership approval for the evacuation process, and the cases of 67,000 other applicants have been reviewed but are still pending approval.

In this report, it is mentioned that in addition to this, tens of thousands of applicants for Special Immigrant Visas for the United States who were former colleagues of American forces and employees in Afghanistan have started the process of requesting their visas.

Following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, thousands of former employees of American forces and local staff in Afghanistan fled to neighbouring countries out of fear of Taliban revenge, with many of them having Special Immigrant Visa cases in progress.

One Afghan engineer who had worked with Americans for several years fled to Pakistan after the fall of Afghanistan and has been waiting for over a year with his wife and one-year-old child for approval of their Special Immigrant Visa application for the United States. He told CNN that the process of reviewing Special Immigrant Visas for the United States is very slow and time-consuming.

He explains that a local employee of America needs to submit six important documents for a Special Immigrant Visa application, including a recommendation letter, human resources verification, personal information, passport, DS-157 form, threat details, and their previous duty card to the relevant authority.

He mentioned that in the early stages of the evacuation, applicants would receive their approval in about three months, but now, this process takes more than a year.

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