House and Senate Democrats are pleading with President Joe Biden to open the borders of the United States to more Afghans — potentially half a million.
In mid-August, as a result of his withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces out of Afghanistan, Biden started the most expansive resettlement operation in American history. Since then, more than 74,500 Afghans have been brought to the U.S. for resettlement across 46 states.
Most of the Afghans brought in by Biden are arriving on “humanitarian parole,” a maneuver that allows visa-less foreign nationals to come to the U.S. with the hope of being approved for asylum, refugee status, a visa, or green card in the future.
This week, a group of 55 House and Senate Democrats is urging Biden to open further the parole pipeline for Afghans. According to the lawmakers, “up to 500,000 Afghans are likely to seek refuge outside of [Afghanistan] by the end of the year and half of [Afghanistan’s] population is in need of aid.”
The Democrats call the Biden administration’s current parole process “restrictive and inconsistent” because there have been reports of Afghans being denied parole. “All vulnerable Afghans,” the Democrats write, must be allowed into the U.S. via parole.
“We urge you to ensure that all vulnerable Afghans, including those in third countries and those still stranded in Afghanistan, are paroled into the United States and not left to languish in legal limbo,” they write.
Biden’s resettlement operation is being funded by the billions by American taxpayers and corporate interests.
Earlier this month, a group of Senate Republicans voted with Democrats to give Biden an additional $7 billion to fund the resettlement operation with no end date or numerical limit for when the U.S. will halt resettling Afghans. The total amount that American taxpayers are now spending on the operation exceeds $13 billion.
Likewise, a non-governmental organization (NGO) — backed by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama — is facilitating much of the Afghan resettlement on the corporate side. That NGO is working with the Koch brothers network of donor class organizations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.
Over the last 20 years, nearly a million refugees have been resettled in the nation — more than double the number of residents living in Miami, Florida, and it would be the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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