On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hallie Jackson Reports,” Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) stated that his office has received more than 11,000 requests for evacuation from Afghanistan and has been pushing on requests from Americans that are still in the country. Kim further stated that “many of them have been stuck outside the airport gates for hours, and now that the final planes have left, they are left with a lot of concern about what comes next and they have a lot of questions.”
Kim stated, “My office, we’ve been inundated, we’ve now hit over 11,000 evacuation requests. The ones that we’ve been pushing the hardest on right now are the Americans that we still know there in Afghanistan, and I’ll tell you, it was — it’s been really tough for the last few days, just hearing how difficult it’s been for them. They’ve been — many of them have been stuck outside the airport gates for hours, and now that the final planes have left, they are left with a lot of concern about what comes next and they have a lot of questions. So, we as a nation need to respond.”
He added, “I think that there was a question on there, it was just the sheer desperation of some of these families. I mean, one of these families has a 4-year-old child that’s an American citizen, and it’s tough. I’ve got a 4-year-old kid, too, and I would move mountains to be able to try to get my kid to safety. So, to think about these families that are going through these Taliban checkpoints trying to get to the airport, and they’re like 50 feet away from the gate. They’re so close to be able to get out of there, and then to have that not come together, and for them to be running low on their cell phone batteries and feel like they have to get back to their home, that’s tough. It really is, and I just urge us to do everything humanly possible to communicate clearly to them about how we’re going to get them out.”
Kim further stated, “I do have faith that we, as a nation, will do everything that we can, and I urge this to, again, be a bipartisan effort, when it comes to getting out Americans. … So, I do hope that we’re able to find a way together to be able to do this.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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