By Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hundreds of veterans and current and former U.S. officials want President-elect Donald Trump to preserve U.S. special visa and resettlement programs for Afghans at risk of retribution for working for the United States during the 20-year war against the Taliban, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.
The letter, signed by the veterans, officials and others, will be sent to Trump and congressional leaders and was organized by #AfghanEvac, the leading coalition of groups that work with the U.S. government to help Afghans start new lives in the United States.
“Many of us have worked closely with Afghan interpreters, soldiers and families who risked everything to protect and guide us,” said a draft of the letter. “To abandon them now would be a betrayal of the values we fought to defend and the trust built through years of shared struggle and sacrifice.”
The letter calls on Trump and congressional leaders to continue funding the resettlement of at-risk Afghans and their families and for Congress to approve an additional 50,000 Special Immigration Visas (SIVs).
The current cap of 50,500 SIVs is expected to run out late this summer or early fall.
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shawn VanDiver, the head of #AfghanEvac, said the letter reflected concerns that Trump will curtail the SIV and resettlement programs as part of his promised crackdown on immigration.
“There’s a real fear that President Trump and Stephen Miller will once again erect bureaucratic barriers that slow down or even stop the SIV and refugee resettlement programs, abandoning our Afghan allies once more,” VanDiver told Reuters.
Miller was the architect of Trump’s first-term hardline immigration policies and is expected to maintain that role as deputy chief of staff when Trump is sworn in for a second time on Jan. 20.
Former U.S. officials and immigration advocates say Miller instituted during Trump’s first term bureaucratic hurdles, including “extreme vetting,” that contributed to a slowdown in SIV processing and a massive application backlog.
However, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Michael Waltz, a former U.S. special forces officer who served in Afghanistan, has fiercely advocated for the SIV and resettlement programs.
His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump made immigration a major issue of his presidential campaign, promising to ramp up border security and deport record numbers of illegal immigrants. He tried during his first term to restrict legal immigration.
VanDiver said that as of Wednesday afternoon, the letter had been signed online by more than 380 veterans, including Jack McCain, the son of the late Senator John McCain, former and current federal, state and local officials, and many ordinary Americans.
He planned to send the letter to the Trump transition team on Friday and hand-deliver it to Republican and Democratic congressional leaders next week.
More than 183,000 at-risk Afghans and family members have been resettled in the United States since the Taliban seized Kabul as the last U.S. troops withdrew in August 2021, according to the State Department.
Afghans who worked for the U.S. military, civilian agencies or other U.S.-affiliated groups continue seeking resettlement amid U.N. reports that the Taliban have killed, arrested and tortured hundreds of former officials and soldiers.
The Taliban, who instituted a general amnesty for officials and troops of the former U.S.-backed government, deny the U.N. charges.
There currently are more than 20,000 SIV applications being processed, said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. They do not include applicants’ families.
About 40 percent of completed applications have been rejected.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; additional reporting by Ted Hesson; Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)
