(PatrioticPost.com)- After the humiliating withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, which saw the Biden administration leave behind hundreds of Americans, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been forced to announce plans to travel to Qatar where he will meet with various leaders to express his gratitude for assisting with the evacuation of Americans.
He gave a press briefing on Friday in which he said that the number of Americans now stranded in the country has dwindled down to 100 – which is still 100 too many – and that they have been in “constant contact” with them since. Blinken added that it is unclear how many applications for the Special Immigrant Visa remain.
The Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, is a system designed for people who assisted American soldiers with the Afghanistan occupation over the last 20 years. It allows those people who might be in danger living under Taliban rule to apply to live in the United States, and has been widely criticized for potentially allowing large numbers of extremists into the United States by simply claiming they were translators.
On September 5, I will depart for Doha, Qatar and Ramstein, Germany. This trip will underscore the importance of cooperation on Afghanistan and allow me to thank our staff and German and Qatari friends for their efforts in supporting the largest airlift in history.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) September 3, 2021
With a majority of the 120,000+ people evacuated from Afghanistan so far being Afghans and not Americans, there must be a lot of translators out there…
Blinken said that there are still many SIV applications being processed and that the State Department is looking into different ways of processing those applications so people do not need to wait in Afghanistan until they are finished.
He advised people waiting for their SIV processing to complete to leave Afghanistan and wait in a third country for additional processing.
After he finishes meetings in Qatar, Blinken is expected to visit an American airbase in Germany where he will meet with his German counterparts to discuss the relocation of huge numbers of Afghans.
It remains unclear how Blinken thinks he can evacuate those 100 Americans his government left behind.
