This month marks the two-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent takeover of the country by the Taliban. In the weeks leading up to the withdrawal, as Taliban forces rapidly moved toward the capital of Kabul, tens of thousands of Afghans sought to flee the country. To help facilitate the evacuation of Afghans who had worked with or supported the mission of U.S. forces, the Biden Administration established a humanitarian parole program.
More than 75,000 Afghans were relocated to the U.S. through humanitarian parole. While this process provides temporary status for a renewable period of two years, it is not a permanent solution. Unless Congress provides a special path to apply for legal permanent residence, as it has in similar situations in the past, most of these individuals and families would have to seek protection through the already backlogged asylum system.
In August 2022, the ABA adopted a policy urging the U.S. government to facilitate continued relocations of Afghan individuals at risk and to provide a streamlined process to adjust to legal permanent residence status for Afghan nationals paroled into the U.S.