PH, US reach deal on Afghan refugees

MANILA has agreed to Washington’s request to allow the entry and temporary stay of Afghan refugees for eventual resettlement in the United States, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

The agreement is undergoing “final domestic procedures required for effectivity,” the DFA said in a statement.

“The Philippines and the United States have agreed on allowing a limited number of Afghan nationals to transit to the Philippines to complete their visa processing for special immigrant visas (SIVs) and resettlement to the United States,” it said.

Under the arrangement, the DFA said, the US government “’is supporting necessary services for those Afghans temporarily in the Philippines, including food, housing, security, medical and transportation to complete visa processing.”

The DFA did not provide details such as the number of Afghans who will enter the country and where they will be temporarily housed.

The Afghans are formerly employed by the US government before US forces left Kabul in 2021 allowing the fundamentalist group Taliban to regain power. Their dependents are included.

Last year, Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez said Manila should accept Washington’s request which was first raised to the Philippine Embassy in Washington in October 2022.

President Joe Biden briefly raised the issue with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during the latter’s state visit to Washington in May 2023.

Romualdez cited the country’s acceptance of refugees, including Vietnamese when the Saigon government fell to communist forces from Hanoi in 1975, Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi rule before World War II, and the White Russians who escaped their country after the Bolsheviks’ take over and the subsequent civil war there in 1917.

After Kabul fell to Taliban forces in 2021 following the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces, then Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said the country also took in Afghan nationals “including women and kids.”

Sen. Imee Marcos has filed a resolution seeking an inquiry into the issue as she questioned the lack of data and information on the Afghan’s status as legitimate employees of the US government or refugees.