The Biden administration is planning to allow certain people into the United States who worked for the Taliban government in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, Fox News reported.
A draft document from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) outlines how the Department of Homeland Security plans to issue a memorandum on the previously mentioned civil servants so that they can be exempt from terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds (TRIG) if they fulfill other background requirements.
"Many individuals who worked in civil service positions before the declaration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996 continued to do so after the declaration," the document reads in justification of these applicants. "Some did so under duress or other situations of hardship."
"Some used their positions in humanitarian capacities to mitigate the repressive actions of the Taliban regime, often at great personal risk. Some of these civil servants later worked for or helped the International Security Assistance Force, the U.S. government or the Afghan government that was established in Dec. 22, 2001," the document states.
One White House official commented that the memo would not change the vetting process and that law enforcement counterterrorism officials would still screen applicants as they would anyone else entering the country.
"The effect [of the memo] is that people who worked as doctors, grade school teachers, civil servants or low-level government employees wouldn't automatically be barred from ever entering the United States because they worked in those professions," the official said.
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