Friend,

Right now, as the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan draws to a close and the Taliban has surged back to power, hundreds of thousands of Afghan people in grave danger are trying to evacuate their country.

But our current limited options for Afghan citizens to relocate to the U.S. mean that even people who worked with the U.S. military are still stuck in Afghanistan. They have no time to spare: The Taliban will target them first for retaliation. Others at risk include human rights defenders and journalists.

We have a moral obligation to shelter refugees who are trying to flee the consequences of a devastating war that we brought to their land.

Please sign now if you agree: The Biden administration must act immediately to save Afghan lives, before the August 31 deadline of fully withdrawing from the country.

This crisis comes after the U.S. spent trillions of dollars and 20 years in a brutal war that killed and traumatized many Afghan civilians on the ground. And let’s not forget that back in the 1980’s, the U.S. armed the resistance groups that became the Taliban.

The least we could do was plan a speedy process to provide sanctuary for any Afghan people in need. But the Biden administration has utterly failed at that, despite having had many months to plan for its scheduled withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan.

As Adam Bates, policy counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said:

“There was no reason it had to come to this mad scramble in the last hours of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. These evacuations could have happened months ago and should have.”

Thousands of Afghan people who helped the U.S. military are still stuck in Afghanistan, in a bureaucratic backlog that’s lasted for years and through multiple presidential administrations.

And a new program to expand options for Afghans is insufficient. It still requires people to relocate to a third country before applying for U.S. refugee status, and support themselves for at least a year while in the application process. That’s practically impossible at this point.

Offering only these two options for Afghans to come to the U.S. is unacceptable. We must rapidly ramp up our ability to evacuate and welcome any Afghan seeking refuge.

That’s why we’re calling for swift policy changes to:

• Expedite visa processing for Afghans facing imminent threats. That includes Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, as well as a new program for people who worked for U.S. organizations—which must allow processing in the U.S., rather than first requiring Afghan applicants to relocate to another country.
• Quickly prioritize accepting refugees, including using humanitarian parole to evacuate Afghans at highest risk and ensure their speedy entry into the U.S.
• Grant Temporary Protected Status to Afghans in the U.S.
• Increase humanitarian aid to those who’ve fled their homes.

Please sign now to tell the Biden administration: There is no time to lose. The administration can and must bring Afghans to safety.

In solidarity,

Rashida