Afghan Americans Angry, Anxious About U.S. Withdrawal

Afghan Americans are feeling angry and anxious about the Biden administration's decision to stick to an Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban seized the Afghan capital on Aug. 14, more than 82,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan in one of the largest U.S. airlifts in history.

While the pace has picked up in recent days, it's still a chaotic scramble as people seek to escape.

"So the 31st date was arbitrarily set without any forethought, but the Taliban have made it even harder to succeed," said Mizgon Zahir Darby, Afghan American community activist who works for the Afghan Coalition, a nonprofit organization that serves the large Afghan immigrant community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"There are going to be tens and thousands of Afghans who are not going to be able to leave safely," she said.

Biden set the Aug. 31 deadline to complete the U.S.-led evacuation, but the president has also asked for contingency plans in case the U.S. still needs to get people out beyond that date.

"In my opinion, if they stay, they should have some kind of agreement. Otherwise it's going to be a very nasty and tough war again on that region," said Farhad Farzon, who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s and runs an Afghan restaurant in Hayward.

White House Press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that the administration is working on options for people still wishing to leave Afghanistan after August 31st, when the U.S. military is expected to be withdrawn from Kabul.

Psaki said the Biden administration suspects many of the estimated 1,000 Americans remaining inside the country are dual American-Afghan nationals.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers urged President Joe Biden to ignore his August 31st deadline for evacuating American citizens from Kabul and continue the mission for as long as it takes.

Thousands of people are still thought to be trying to leave the capital city, and it's not clear that all of them will be able to before the end of the month

The White House said Wednesday around 19,000 people were evacuated from Kabul over the last 24 hours.

The Pentagon says it will continue to evacuate people from Afghanistan until the U.S. leaves next Tuesday, but during the final days it will need to prioritize getting U.S. troops and military equipment out of the country.

Any decision by Biden to stay longer could reignite fighting between the Taliban and Western troops running the airlift.

Mohammad Mehdavi, an Afghan American community leader who immigrated to the U.S. 40 years ago, said he's worried about his family members and other Afghans who will be trapped under Taliban rule.

"We are very sad as an Afghan, as an as an American, as a human being, I'm very sad for this kind of situation," Mehdavi said. "And the world has not seen this kind of situation before. You know, this was worse than Vietnam."

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