Statement for the Record of Human Rights First On Senate Judiciary Committee Joint Subcommittee Hearing Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism “Biden’s Afghan Parolee Program”

For over twenty years, Afghan human rights defenders, civil society, and government leaders staked their lives, futures, and families on the international community’s efforts to build a rights-based democracy in their country. When that effort collapsed in August 2021, they faced deadly retribution from one of the world’s most repressive and brutal regimes. In response to this catastrophe, assisting our Afghan allies went beyond policy preferences – for many Americans, it was and is central to our moral identity. Human Rights First has worked since early 2021 to get support and protection for Afghan allies and other at-risk Afghans in the United States and abroad. 

Following President Biden’s April 2021 announcement of the full withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan by September 11th of that year, Human Rights First sprang into action. Our Veterans for American Ideals program (VFAI) developed a detailed plan to evacuate Afghan allies to a U.S. territory and led the creation of the Evacuate Our Allies (EOA) coalition. EOA has grown from three veteran-led groups to a 280-member working coalition of human rights, veterans, religious, national security, refugee, resettlement, and Afghan-American organizations that continue congressional and administrative advocacy, as well as legal assistance and representation, and public leadership, on issues around the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans. 

As the U.S. prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan, violence from the Taliban against Afghan nationals increased, including the explicit targeting of Afghans associated with the U.S. mission. While the Biden administration took steps to evacuate groups of allies before the withdrawal was complete, this approach did not meet the need on the ground, leaving some Afghans behind once troops fully withdrew and others in third countries in need of resettlement support. Faced with a humanitarian catastrophe, Human Rights First assisted from the civil society side to support the response from NGO and veteran communities, Congressional offices, the State Department, and within Afghanistan. During the initial evacuation period, we identified evacuation needs and worked to get individuals out of Afghanistan to safety. In that time, Human Rights First documented and referred over 95,000 vulnerable individuals in need of evacuation to the State Department. Without Operation Allies Refuge (OAR) and Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) the  tens of thousands of Afghans that benefited from these efforts would almost certainly have been at risk of grave harm due to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.