President Joe Biden’s congressional budget request would offer tens of thousands of Afghans arriving in the United States a host of welfare and quick naturalized American citizenship, a new analysis states.
The analysis, conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and shared with Breitbart News, details Biden’s request to Congress for $6.4 billion in American taxpayer money to resettle 95,000 Afghans across the U.S. over the next year.
Specifically, Biden’s plan would provide an “expedited path to citizenship” to tens of thousands of Afghans who arrived via “humanitarian parole” by giving them green cards after just a year of residing in the U.S.
Then, after only a few years of holding a green card, those Afghans would be eligible to apply for naturalized U.S. citizenship. The FAIR analysis suggests that the Biden administration will fast-track the citizenship process by backdating green cards for Afghans to the date when they initially secured parole.
Soldiers with 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division escort Afghan evacuees to their living accommodations at Fort Bliss’ Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico, August 31, 2021. (U.S. Army photo by: Staff Sgt. Michael West, 1st Armored Division, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team)
Before ever getting a green card, though, the Biden plan ensures that Afghans become immediately eligible for welfare programs that parolees are typically not provided. Afghans who complete “vague” vetting procedures, according to the FAIR analysis, would be first in line for the public benefits.
The welfare that Afghans would be eligible for includes resettlement assistance and entitlement programs, paid for by American taxpayers. Even more, Afghans adjusting status to get green cards would be able to have their fees waived — indicating that their immigration processing will be subsidized by other green card applicants, according to the FAIR analysis.
Biden’s fee waivers for Afghans, alone, “will trigger a nationality-based campaign to get similar favorable treatment” in the green card process, FAIR analysts predict.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), last week, slammed Biden’s request to Congress:
Joe Biden left behind thousands in Afghanistan who already have American citizenship, green cards, or pending visas, but now he wants to award unlimited green cards to people who didn’t serve alongside our troops and who may even threaten our safety and health — all while exempting them from the normal refugee screening process.
Though Biden has pitched the Afghan resettlement as a commitment to the nation’s allies, the overwhelming majority of Afghans arriving in the U.S. do not qualify for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) or P-2 visas. Those visa programs are reserved only for Afghans and their families who worked directly for the U.S. Armed Forces.
Afghan refugees arrive at Dulles International Airport on August 27, 2021 in Dulles, Virginia, after being evacuated from Kabul following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
Instead, Afghans are mostly arriving on parole. An estimated 50,000 Afghans will be brought to the U.S. as parolees, where they will stay at a number of U.S. military bases and receive one-time $1,250 payments.
Afghans are being extracted from Afghanistan and flown to third safe countries like Germany, Spain, and Qatar before they eventually are flown into Dulles International Airport in Virginia and Philadelphia International Airport in Pennsylvania.
Most Afghans arriving in the U.S. have not completed their immigration processing.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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