CNN reports:

Stephen Miller seemed floored by the idea, raised during a fall Cabinet meeting in 2018, of  keeping open the doors for Afghan allies and other Middle East refugees to enter the US. 

“What do you guys want?” Miller, then a top adviser to President Donald Trump, asked incredulously, according to one person in the room. “A bunch of Iraqs and ‘Stans across the country?”

His words stunned many in the meeting, but they were no accident. Under Miller’s guidance, several sources told CNN, the Trump administration was purposefully slow-walking the entry of all refugees — including allies who aided American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Now, after the end of America’s longest war, “the majority” of Afghans who worked for the US during its two-decade military campaign have likely been left behind in Afghanistan, according to State Department estimates, at the mercy of the country’s new Taliban regime. And Republicans are criticizing President Joe Biden for the chaotic withdrawal and for vetting allies too loosely.

But the mayhem in Kabul, as crowds of Afghans tried desperately to flee the country in the final days of August, was due in no small part to the slowdown during the previous administration, according to former officials who argue more allies could have been admitted in the years prior.

The Trump administration’s suspicion of refugees stalled an already cumbersome system of approval for Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan allies, these officials said, and the Biden administration ultimately inherited a significant backlog of more than 17,000 SIV applicants. [Continue reading…]