The Biden administration just recently declared that Afghan nationals will no longer be permitted to enter the United States under the humanitarian parole authority as of October 1st, 2022, as part of a new refugee resettlement plan. Instead, the administration will focus on resettling Afghan evacuees who are eligible for immigration schemes that grant them permanent legal status. The day of October 1st, 2022 will mark the beginning of a new phase of the Biden administration where they will operate to evacuate and resettle Afghans after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August of 2021.
According to the senior administration, during the upcoming new phase the United States will relocate three major groups of Afghans. The following groups include immediate family members of American citizens, permanent residents, and evacuees, and those who qualify for a Special Immigrant Visa due to their support of the American war effort as they are the “most vulnerable” applicants for the refugee program. The Biden Administration’s logic behind slowly getting rid of the use of humanitarian parole is to make sure future Afghan arrivals will have a direct pathway to permanent legal immigration status in the United States, rather than needing to go through all of the current domestic government processes and end up not being granted permanent residency.
