White House pressed on evacuating Afghan allies as time runs out

Source: The Hill | May 29, 2021 | Rebecca Kheel

The Biden administration is facing increasingly urgent calls to evacuate Afghans who helped the United States during the 20-year war and are at risk of being hunted down and killed by the Taliban after U.S. troops depart.

The top general in the United States confirmed this week that the military is drafting plans for an evacuation should President Biden order one.

But advocates and lawmakers, including some who support Biden’s withdrawal, are pressing for more concrete actions and details amid dire warnings that time is running out to help those who helped the United States.

“We are aware and appreciate that the National Security Council, the Department of Defense and the State Department are very rapidly planning to figure out how to best help these allies, but with only six to eight weeks left before potential full withdrawal, it’s really time for action,” Elizabeth Neumann, a former Homeland Security Department official in the Trump administration, said on a call with reporters this week, referring to reports the Afghanistan withdrawal could be complete as soon as July.

Neumann now works with an organization called the Council on National Security and Immigration, which sent Biden a letter this past week urging him to “swiftly devise an evacuation strategy for the Afghan nationals and their family members who have risked their lives to serve alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan.”

“We acknowledge this will be a complicated undertaking, requiring extensive resources and bureaucratic coordination in a challenging environment. But time is limited. We believe it is a moral imperative to move as quickly as possible to protect the lives of the Afghan nationals who have sacrificed alongside our American service members and government officials,” read the letter from a group that included former George W. Bush administration National Security Council official Rick “Ozzie” Nelson, former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) and several former Homeland Security officials.

The letter was one of the latest calls in a growing chorus for the administration to do more to help those who served as interpreters or otherwise assisted U.S. troops during America’s longest war.

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