Charlie Savage’s avatarCharlie Savage’s Twitter Archive—№ 14,247

  1. New: No final decisions made, but several dozen Afghan evacuees flagged during overseas vetting (apparent criminal pasts or links to militants) have been sent to a NATO base in Kosovo, where their fate is uncertain and raising legal policy dilemmas. nytimes.com/2021/10/23/us/politics/afghan-evacuees-kosovo.html
    On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 31 Retweets ❤️ 61 Favorites Mood -4 🙁
    1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
      /2 Many evacuees initially raised red flags for reasons that were clearable, e.g. they simply had the same name as someone else in a database of known or suspected terrorists. This group is different: further scrutiny has not cleared up the derogatory information.
      Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 4 Retweets ❤️ 9 Favorites Mood -4 🙁
      1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
        /3 Biden nat-sec legal policy team has been wrestling with questions like what to do if any grow fed up waiting and try to walk off the base in Kosovo, contrary to the US-Kosovo agreement. (They aren't prisoners/detainees)
        Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 4 Retweets ❤️ 5 Favorites Mood +2 🙂
        1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
          /4 Kosovo has agreed to let Afghans be housed at Camp Bondsteel for no more than a year, so those ultimately deemed ineligible to come to the US will need some other off ramp by next August/September.
          Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 5 Retweets ❤️ 5 Favorites Mood 0
          1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
            /5 What if diplomatic efforts to find some other country willing to take them in fail? Can some -- specifically, those redflagged for links to the Taliban -- be legally repatriated to Taliban-run Afghanistan?
            Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 4 Retweets ❤️ 4 Favorites Mood -1 🙁
            1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
              /6 The Biden WH, wary of providing a basis for accusations of politicization, has given no instructions for standards of who to let in. Existing DHS policy is not to let anyone with national security or violent crime derogatory information.
              Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 3 Favorites Mood -9 🙁
              1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
                /7 Those dinged for criminal concerns are said to number in the single digits. Those for links to militants (mostly Taliban) are said to be in the dozens. Some have family with them at Bondsteel who are not redflagged but chose to stay together.
                Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 6 Retweets ❤️ 11 Favorites Mood -3 🙁
                1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
                  /8 For the Biden team, the legal-policy headache comes with a political silver lining: shows there's been real screening overseas before Afghans have been cleared to come to US, contrary to GOP attempts to stoke fears Biden is importing Afghans w/out any vetting.
                  Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 7 Retweets ❤️ 22 Favorites Mood -1 🙁
                  1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
                    /9 Also: updated numbers. Of the roughly 80,000 Afghans the US military airlifted out, about 76k are now in the US and about 4k remain at overseas bases. Most of the latter are also cleared but recently vaccinated & waiting it to take hold before coming.
                    Permalink On twitter.com Twitter logo Charlie Savage’s avatar ♻️ 8 Retweets ❤️ 23 Favorites Mood +1 🙂