SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — It’s been three years since the last U.S. plane left Afghanistan, completing the military’s withdrawal from the country.
“It’s really hard to believe that it has been three difficult years,” Rahmat Mokhtar, Volunteer for #AfghanEvac, said. “Very hard to see the three pass, and not much has changed, and things even in a sense got worse for people; for our friends, our family, our allies who live in Afghanistan.”
Moktar is a former interpreter who worked with U.S. Marines and the DOD in Afghanistan. He moved to the U.S. in 2017.
Right now, He’s a volunteer with Afghan Evac, a local non-profit that is working to relocate and resettle Afghans in the U.S. since the withdrawal.
“One thing that also encourages me is that when I see people come to the United States after so much paperwork and administrative process,” Moktar said.
Shawn VanDiver is the found of the #AfghanEvac.
“There are more than 165,000 Afghans who are shooting their shot at the American Dream who have arrived since then,” VanDiver said.
He said there have been some accomplishments that have made for the better since their work started after the withdrawal.
“We have improved processing speed. We’ve fundamentally that we handle refugees. Taking the process of evaluating refugees of screening refugees from two, three, sometimes five years down to 30 to 60 days,” VanDiver said.
But VanDiver says even more work like modernizing the special immigrant visa system, adjudicating humanitarian parole applications and more congressional action on the issue can be done in the future.
“We need to permanently authorize the organization within the State Department, CARE, that handles all these relocations. So that no matter who’s in the White House, it doesn’t go away,” VanDiver said.
“I would love to see more pathways for Afghan allies and Afghans whose lives are impacted by as a result of the August 2021. They deserve more,” Moktar said.
