afghanistan to express our deep gratitude they have been doing to aid with the evacuation effort. and i will convey our pride and thanks to the diplomats, troops, and other u.s. employees who are doing truly heroic work around the clock to make this process ongoing as quickly as possible. and in germany, i m going to have a chance to meet with the americans awaiting processing and i m going to meet and hold an administerial meeting on afghanistan with partners of more than 20 countries that all have a stake and seek to relocate afghans and hold the
issuing siv visas by more than a year. in july, some of you will remember, we launched operation allies refuge with afghan refugees eligible for sivs, as well as their family members to the united states. we continue to process as many siv applications as possible. we are exploing alternative ways to process siv applications, so afghanistans don t have to wait in afghanistan while they are being process. we have learned from experience that the siv process was not
does it in a way that is methodical and delivers a secure outcome for the united states. sandra: thank you. it is certainly a process and we hope to learn more about that process as so many are being brought over. we know that we have heard about the refugee vetting process. this is something that we hope to get more information over time as the vetting continues. john: there was fierce fighting and in north of kabul. i wonder if the taliban has overrun the opposition? sandra: this taliban commander is reporting in the reuters reporting, by the grace of allah, we are control of the
designed to be done during an evacuation emergency. there are lessons that we have learned and we will learn as the process continues to make the application program more efficient and effective. i want to thank the many members in afghanistan that are working through organizations to help afghans that helped them. i just spoke with several of them, along with the secretary of veterans affairs who are using their voices, their networks, their resources who are doing all they can to help their friends and comrades. we will partner with them to help siv applicants in afghanistan. we have ideas and it is going to be incorporated into the planning and work they are doing. and the information and the ideas that we are getting from
government participating, they shutdown the siv process, and no one single visa was issued the rest of 2020. now we have this backlog and the human tragedy of people on the ground in afghanistan holding such visas unable to get out of their country. the feeling is that we have resources still on the ground in afghanistan trying to implement some exit plan, but that s going to depend on the cooperation of the taliban in order to do that. but i think it is an ongoing process. i think there is potential for getting many of them out of afghanistan, but it s going to have to be on the near horizon. it s going to have to be within the next couple of months. what we ve gone through with the taliban over the past couple of weeks is, in effect, the taliban s opening day on broadway. their opening week on broadway. they re trying to present a more functional picture to the world of who they are. nobody trusts them, and we re