Biden admin extends legal status for 70,000+ Afghan evacuees in U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security will permit the thousands of Afghans whom the U.S. helped flee the country amid the 2021 Taliban takeover to apply to renew their legal status in the states for an additional two years.

The administration used its parole authority to admit the Afghan evacuees to the country without using the refugee or visa processes, meaning they are not currently eligible to seek citizenship or permanent residency. Those who directly aided the U.S. military effort, however, are eligible for a separate, expedited process, CBS News reported, citing "four people familiar with the plan."

Nearly 80,000 evacuees arrived in the United States in mid-2021, an exodus from the Central Asian country prompted by the administration's botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region and the rapid evaporation of the democratic regime it left behind.

The protracted stay of tens of thousands of foreign nationals without permanent status may present security concerns, however. The DHS Office of the Inspector General last year confirmed in a report that the agency failed to property vet the evacuees and identified "dozens" of individuals with known "derogatory information" whom the U.S. admitted into its borders.

In one particularly glaring instance, the IG pointed to the arrival of an individual whom the Taliban freed from an Afghan prison. That person was ultimately deported.

The Kabul Airlift, as the evacuation came to be known, marked an inglorious end to 20 years of U.S. military involvement in the region after the 9/11 terror attacks. During the evacuation, a suicide bombing took the lives of 13 U.S. servicemembers.

The Biden administration had generally enjoyed positive approval numbers prior to the disastrous withdrawal. The collapse of the Islamic Republic and the subsequent evacuation of American personnel prompted a collapse in its polling numbers from which it has not recovered.

Reports emerged in April of this year that the Taliban, who now largely govern Afghanistan, had successfully dispatched the mastermind behind the bombing as part of its ongoing conflict with the Islamic State's Khorasan Province. U.S. government officials presented the episode as sending a message to militants against targeting U.S. personnel.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.