
CONFLICTED How the US is Abandoning its Afghan Allies
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Feb 12, 2026 Shawn VanDiver, a U.S. Navy veteran who founded AfghanEvac to help Afghan partners navigate U.S. immigration, recounts the breakdown of evacuation and resettlement pathways. He discusses the failures of the Special Immigrant Visa program, the chaotic 2021 withdrawal, policy rollbacks that halted relocations, and how grassroots activism turned into government partnership.
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SIV Was Burdensome By Design
- The Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) placed the paperwork burden on Afghan applicants, making it vulnerable and hard to use.
- U.S. agencies then had to validate badges, contracts and identities, creating a slow, onerous process.
Policies Left The System In Ashes
- Trump-era immigration moves, including the Muslim ban, deconstructed refugee pathways and slowed SIV processing.
- By Biden's start, the system was 'in ashes' and COVID had further halted visa processing worldwide.
Real-Time Evac Sync Calls
- VanDiver organized synchronized group calls at 6am and 6pm Pacific to share critical evacuation intelligence.
- The calls pooled info on checkpoints, threats, and needs and scaled from seven groups to about fifty.
