as well as offers of help including financial assistance to pay for plane tickets. despite this efforts, at the time of the evacuation began, there were still thousands of americans in afghanistan. almost all of whom were evacuated by august 31st. many were dual citis living in afghanistan for years, decades, generations. deciding whether or not to leave the place that they know as home is a wrenching decision. in april, we began drawing down our embassy ordering nonessential personnel to depart. we also used this time to significantly speed up the processing of special immigrant visas for afghans who worked for us. when we took office, we inherited a program with a 14-step process based on a statutory framework enacted by congress involving multiple agencies. and a backlog of more than 17,000 siv applicants. there had not been a single siv applicant interview in kabul in