On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) said the Biden administration “is throwing up a new bureaucratic roadblock when they can’t get their existing bureaucracy to work fast enough to save lives” with its new Afghan resettlement policy and said that relatives of his constituents who worked for the U.S. embassy couldn’t get their visas approved for four months and “And they’re still stuck there” being hunted by the Taliban.
Host Andrea Mitchell asked, “Now, there is new reporting that the Biden administration is changing their resettlement policy, with a few exceptions, that the temporary relocation of Afghans to the U.S. is going to change and they’re going to focus on reuniting immediate family members with pathways to permanent residency. Is this an improvement, or will this leave some more people stranded? I’m not clear exactly on how it’s going to play out.”
Moulton answered, “This is breaking news, and we’re still trying to understand the details. But from everything I’ve seen so far, this is a step backwards because the administration is throwing up a new bureaucratic roadblock when they can’t get their existing bureaucracy to work fast enough to save lives. Because so many Afghans are still stuck. Two family members of one of my constituents were embassy employees. They worked for the embassy itself. And it still took the State Department four months to simply prove that fact, to simply approve their visas. And they’re still stuck there. They’re still stuck there getting hunt[ed] down by the Taliban today. So, throwing up new bureaucratic roadblocks is not going to help.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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