MANILA: The Philippines has agreed to temporarily host a US visa-processing center for Afghan nationals who had worked for American forces in Afghanistan and were left behind during their chaotic withdrawal from the country in 2021.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken requested the Philippines in 2022 to allow up to 1,000 Afghan nationals to stay in its territory while their special immigrant visas were being processed.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said at the time that there were some legal and “many security issues” to be addressed first.
Early on Tuesday, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs announced that Manila would allow a “limited number” of Afghan nationals to transit in the Philippines to complete their visa processing for Special Immigrant Visas and resettlement in the US.
DFA spokesperson Teresita Daza told reporters that they would be “confined to their billet facility for the duration of the processing of their SIV applications by the US embassy in Manila.”
She added that “the US government, together with the International Organization for Migration as facility manager, will ensure that the applicants, especially the children, will have adequate social, educational, religious and emotional support during their stay in the billet facility.”
Daza said the refugees would be subject to “full security vetting by Philippine authorities and should secure appropriate entry visa prior to arrival (and that) the Bureau of Immigration retains full authority to exclude any applicant from entry into the Philippines.”
More than 160,000 Afghans sought resettlement when the Taliban took over Afghanistan as international forces withdrew from the country in 2021 — two decades after the US invaded it.
Thousands of others are in third countries awaiting visa processing. Many of them had worked for the US government.
In a statement, the US State Department thanked the Philippines “for supporting Afghan allies of the United States” and that it “appreciates its long and positive history of bilateral cooperation with the Philippines.”
Dr. Rikard Jalkebro, international relations expert and associate professor at Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, told Arab News that the US is “trying to keep the promise” it had given to the Afghans who had helped its forces.
“These are the type of Afghans that have collaborated or helped the Americans somehow during the war. They would be interpreters, they could be politicians, or they could be from influential families. They can be soldiers that fought either side by side or something similar to that,” he said.
“The American immigration system is so incredibly strained at the moment, and they operate very slowly when it comes to processing green cards, etc. They need some kind of safe place for the people, for the Afghans ... the Philippines is a close ally and they would be relatively safe there.”
