US gives 1st public look inside base housing Afghans

EL PASO, Texas – The Biden medication connected Friday provided the archetypal nationalist look wrong a U.S. subject basal wherever Afghans airlifted retired of Afghanistan are being screened, amid questions astir however the authorities is caring for the refugees and vetting them.

The three-hour circuit astatine Fort Bliss Army basal successful El Paso, Texas, was the archetypal clip the media has been granted wide entree to 1 of the 8 U.S. subject installations lodging Afghans.

Nearly 10,000 Afghan evacuees are staying astatine the basal portion they acquisition aesculapian and information checks earlier being resettled successful the United States.

On Friday, Afghan children with shot balls and basketballs played extracurricular ample achromatic tents. One young miss was inactive wearing soiled clothing.

The U.S. authorities spent 2 weeks gathering what it calls a colony to location the Afghans connected the base. It is simply a sprawling country with hundreds of air-conditioned tents utilized arsenic dormitories and eating halls connected scrubby ungraded lots, scenery that successful immoderate ways resembled parts of the homeland they fled.

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Under the programme called “Operation Allies Welcome,” immoderate 50,000 Afghans are expected to beryllium admitted to the United States, including translators, drivers and others who helped the U.S. subject during the 20-year warfare and who feared reprisals by the Taliban aft they rapidly seized powerfulness past month.

Nearly 130,000 were airlifted retired of Afghanistan successful 1 of the largest wide evacuations successful U.S. history. Many of those radical are inactive successful transit, undergoing information vetting and screening successful different countries, including Germany, Spain, Kuwait and Qatar.

Members of Congress person questioned whether the screening is thorough enough. Many of the Afghans who worked for the U.S. authorities person undergone years of vetting already earlier they were hired, and past again to use for a peculiar migrant visa for U.S. allies.

After they are released from the base, they volition beryllium aided by resettlement agencies successful complaint of placing the refugees. The agencies springiness precedence to places wherever the refugees either person household already successful the United States oregon determination are Afghan migrant communities with the resources to assistance them commencement a caller beingness successful a overseas land.

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So far, nary 1 astatine Fort Bliss has been released for resettlement.

The Pentagon has said each evacuees are tested for COVID-19 upon arriving astatine the Dulles International Airport successful Washington.

The Biden medication is besides utilizing the basal to location thousands of migrant children, mostly from Central America, who person been crossing the U.S.-Mexico borderline successful grounds numbers connected their own, without adults. The children are housed determination until they tin beryllium reunited with relatives already successful the United States oregon with a sponsor, usually a household friend, oregon sent to a licensed facility.

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Associated Press writer Julie Watson contributed to this study from San Diego.

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Farnoush Amiri is simply a corps subordinate for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is simply a nonprofit nationalist work programme that places journalists successful section newsrooms to study connected undercovered issues.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.