Doctors, teachers, engineers and other Afghans who were forced to associate with the Taliban will now have a chance at asylum or visas after the Biden administration loosened a terrorism-related designation on Tuesday, according to government officials and documents reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
The exemption will be applied on a case-by-case basis after security vetting and is expected to help Afghans who fled their country after U.S. troops withdrew and the Taliban took over last August, as well as some Afghans who entered the U.S. earlier, said officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
Some can be flagged with the terrorism designation for as little as paying their electricity bill to the Taliban, paying money to get through a Taliban checkpoint or obtaining a passport issued by the Taliban. Others can get the designation for having worked as civil servants under Taliban rule in the 1990s. Among them are Afghan citizens who assisted the U.S. government. They must otherwise be eligible for asylum, refugee or other immigration status.
