US halts visa processing for Afghan allies
The United States has stopped processing all visa applications from Afghan nationals, including those who assisted the US during its 20-year presence in Afghanistan. The suspension was confirmed in a State Department cable sent to all US diplomatic missions on Friday.
The order instructs consular officers to reject all immigrant and non-immigrant visa applications from Afghans, including those filed under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program designed to protect Afghan interpreters, guides, and others who supported US forces.
The move comes after a former member of an Afghan CIA-backed unit was accused of shooting two US National Guard soldiers in Washington, DC, on Wednesday. One of the soldiers later died from his injuries.
The State Department has not yet commented publicly on how long the suspension may last or how it will impact thousands of Afghans who are still waiting for resettlement.
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The State Department on Saturday referred Reuters to a statement on platform X by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday in which he said that "ALL individuals" travelling on Afghan passports would have their visa issuance "paused".
The cable on Friday, which was earlier reported by the New York Times, said the move to stop processing visas for Afghan nationals was aimed at "ensuring the applicant's identity and eligibility for a visa under US law."
A volunteer group helping support the United States' Afghan allies said the cable was part of an effort by the Trump administration to bar all Afghans from making it to the United States.
"There is no doubt this is the outcome they have been driving toward for months," Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, said in an email.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Appointments already scheduled for Afghan applicants will not be cancelled. But when they occur, consular officers should refuse to give a visa to applicants, the cable said. The State Department said that any authorised visas that have not been printed yet should be reversed and cancelled, while printed visas should be destroyed and those cases amended in the system and rejected.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services had already halted processing of Afghan nationals' immigration requests indefinitely earlier this week.
About 200,000 Afghans have entered the United States through 2021 through refugee and special visa programmes, VanDiver previously told Reuters. Applications were still being processed for another 265,000 Afghans outside the United States, including about 180,000 in the Special Immigrant Visa pipeline for those who worked for the US government, he said.
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Since returning to office in January, Trump has aggressively prioritised immigration enforcement, sending federal agents to major US cities and turning away asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. The flurry of promised restrictions since the attack on Wednesday now suggests an increased focus by his administration on legal immigration.
Source: Reuters
