US President Donald Trump’s foreign aid pause has forced a suspension of flights for more than 40,000 Afghans approved for Special Immigration Visas (SIV).
Following an executive order Donald Trump, the refugee resettlement programs has been suspended.
According to a VOA report, the officials of Afghan evacuation program say that flights for more than 40,000 Afghans who have been accepted into a SIV program have been delayed due to Trump’s ban on foreign aid.
With the condition of anonymity, a US official said the founder of Afghan Evacuation Program Shawn Van Diver told Reuters yesterday, most of those Afghans accepted for the SIV programs are now in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar and Albania.
On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new directive which suspended foreign aid to all countries except Egypt and Israel for three months to determine the effectiveness of this aid and its consistency with US policy.
According to the Afghan Evacuation founder, between 150,000 and 200,000 Afghans are waiting to complete their immigration cases and go to the US.
Since the political change in Afghanistan, nearly 200,000 Afghans had been resettled in the US through SIV or other immigration programs with the help of some other agencies that are with resettlement.
A report from the US State Department in September last year said that 67,000 people who meet the requirements for SIV visas are awaiting their final approval, and another 11,000 Afghans are awaiting their interviews.
The SIV Program for Afghans was launched in 2009, and the US Congress has approved 38,500 such visas in the past few years.
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