US to offer refugee status to Afghans at risk because of American ties amid growing Taliban threat

The U.S. on Monday announced it would offer refugee status to Afghans at risk because of American ties amid the growing Taliban threat.

The Biden administration is expanding the group of Afghans who could be granted refugee status and flee to the United States to escape the growing threat of the Taliban across Afghanistan, the State Department announced Monday. The militant group is increasingly gaining control of districts across the country, as the war-torn country teeters dangerously towards collapse into all-out civil war. But while President Joe Biden has committed to helping Afghans who helped the U.S. military and diplomatic mission in the country for the last 20 years, the new policy will apply only to Afghans who have left the country and will take at least over a year for their cases to be processed, according to senior State Department officials -- even as the risk to these Afghans is urgent. The Biden administration has launched relocation flights for thousands of Afghans who worked as interpreters, guides, and other contractors and applied for Special Immigrant Visas - some 20,000 applicants in total, according to a State Department spokesperson, although only a fraction of them will be evacuated by the U.S.