The USA wants to fly former Afghan local workers out via Germany. Afghans are said to have flown to Ramstein and loudly SWR-Information will then be housed in a US barracks in Kaiserslautern.
US facilities in Germany will accommodate Afghans for a limited time until their immigration procedures for the US are completed. This is what a spokesman for the US Consulate General in Frankfurt am Main said SWR confirmed. Until then, they will receive food and medical care here.
The “Spiegel” first reported that former local employees who are legally allowed to immigrate to the USA are to be taken on flights from Kabul to the US air force base in Ramstein, Rhineland-Palatinate. In Germany, according to “Spiegel”, the Afghans who have already been checked will be housed in a US barracks in Kaiserslautern. The US Consulate General in Frankfurt am Main then issues “Special Immigration Visas” for onward travel to the USA.
The consulate spokesman confirmed this SWRthat Afghans had already arrived in Germany at the beginning of December and were waiting to travel on to the USA.
Already 18,000 USImmigrant visas
According to the spokesperson, the US government generally processes these special immigrant visas as quickly as possible and aims to complete the cases in Germany in less than 30 days. So far there is no information about how many Afghans are being flown to the USA via Ramstein. It is also unclear when the flights will start.
Between the beginning of October 2022 and the end of September 2023, the US government had already issued more than 18,000 special immigrant visas to Afghan applicants. For the United States, Germany is one of several locations worldwide where Afghan applicants and their eligible family members can go through their visa processes.
In 2021, the USA had already flown tens of thousands of Afghans via Ramstein after the capture of the Afghan capital Kabul by the radical Islamic Taliban. This operation is considered one of the largest humanitarian airlifts in US history.
Thousands of Afghans are waiting to enter Germany
The question of the future of many Afghan local employees who worked for Germany remains open. In October 2022, the federal government set up a federal admission program to enable particularly vulnerable Afghans and their families to be admitted to Germany.
Just a few days ago, 188 Afghans were flown from Pakistan to Leipzig with a confirmation of admission to Germany. According to the federal government, around 11,500 people from Afghanistan who have been accepted by the Federal Republic of Germany were waiting to leave for Germany at the end of November.