Biden administration created exemption for many low-level Taliban ‘civil servants’ to come to U.S.

https://justthenews.com/government/security/biden-admin-created-exemption-hundreds-low-level-taliban-civil-servants

Amidst renewed scrutiny about the poor vetting of Afghan refugees in the wake of the debacle in August 2021, a review of a little-known Biden Administration policy allowing former Taliban government workers to come to the United States is taking center stage.

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The Biden Administration implemented a terrorism exemption for Afghan refugees allowing hundreds of low-level “civil servants” from the Taliban government to resettle in the United States in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal and evacuation from the country.

The Biden-led Department of Homeland Security and State Department announced in June 2022 that it had put together new exemptions for purportedly vetted applicants who would otherwise be blocked from the United States — including some former Taliban government workers. The policy allowed hundreds of Afghans to come to the U.S. when they would have previously likely been barred due to terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds (TRIG). This reportedlyallowed hundreds of former Taliban government workers to come to the U.S.

The exemptions were for Afghans who had worked as “civil servants” under the Taliban (both before 9/11 and after August 2021), as well as for Afghans who “supported U.S. military interests” such as participation in resistance movements against the Taliban or the Soviet Army and for Afghans “who provided only certain limited material support to the Taliban or other designated terrorist organizations.”

The Biden administration agencies said that the “new exemptions may apply” to “individuals employed as civil servants in Afghanistan at any time from September 27, 1996 to December 22, 2001 or after August 15, 2021.” These time periods covered both the Taliban’s first stint ruling Afghanistan — when they protected al-Qaeda before and after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and were subsequently overthrown following a U.S. invasion — and the Taliban’s current rule of the country in the wake of the disastrous and chaotic U.S. evacuation in August 2021.