Former Afghan translators go on a hunger strike on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 31, 2022, while calling on the federal government to do more to help family members fleeing the Taliban. Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press
A Canadian veterans’ group is abandoning efforts to evacuate Afghans who have backed Ottawa’s military and diplomatic mission in the country, citing staff burnouts and a federal immigration system overloaded with bureaucracy.
The Veterans Transition Network, which says it raised $ 3.6 million and helped save 2,061 Afghans since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, is refocusing on its top priority to help Canadian veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders. health issues.
Oliver Thorne, executive director of VTN, said the burdensome government documentation, lack of federal funding and difficulty in finding safe routes from Afghanistan forced the charity to abandon its evacuation work.
Mr Thorne said VTN staff were exhausted from double responsibilities, especially from the additional work of processing the complex application process introduced by Canada for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC). Documents and security checks are causing significant delays in approving special visas for Canada’s Afghan allies, he said.
“What we are seeing is a government policy that is very risk-averse to be selfish and affects organizations like ours,” he said, stressing that it was not the fault of IRCC government officials.
“We are connecting with really hard-working people who really want to help, but they seem to be committed to a policy that is simply not in line with the real needs of this evacuation.
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Mr Thorne said VTN and other veteran groups, such as the humanitarian organization Aman Lara, were disappointed by the slow pace of visa approval, the IRCC’s failure to respond to visa applications and security and biometric checks. The delays have forced many former Afghan translators, embassy security guards, cooks and drivers to seek refuge in safe houses to avoid Taliban repression.
He called on the government to streamline the process for Afghans who risked their lives for Canada, as Ottawa did for Ukrainian citizens fleeing the Russian invasion. The situation is urgent, he said, because the Taliban are hunting down Afghans who have worked for Canada and other Western allies.
“What would facilitate the process the most is the ability to perform a biometric check upon arrival in Canada. That would really eliminate the huge administrative burden for the candidates, “he said. “In the absence of this thing as a single-use travel document … to allow people without passports to move to Pakistan, where they could perform biometric processing.
Mr Thorne said Ottawa had also become too restrictive about how groups like VTN could use federal money to help Afghans with the cost of living.
“Obviously, there are big concerns about the possibility of the funds falling into the hands of the Taliban,” he said. “[But] this goes to extremes. We have heard from people in the government that there are fears that buying petrol could lead to the payment of taxes to the Taliban.
VTN will stop accepting donations on May 2 and all money raised during this period will go for evacuations due to resettlement.
“It’s a really difficult decision. We have been betting on this for a harder and much longer time than we originally expected, but there is also the reality that we are needed here at home, “said Mr Thorne.
Retired Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, a former Liberal lawmaker and commander of the Canadian military, said Afghans had been killed while waiting for their promised Canadian travel documents. He has said in recent months that he has failed to contact some of his Afghan friends and fears they have been killed by the Taliban.
Mr Leslie blames Justin Trudeau for delaying visa issuance and bureaucratic hurdles. He said the prime minister had failed to intervene and order the process to be simplified, as he had done for Ukrainian citizens.
“It is unforgivable. We have a Byzantine emergency response system, extensive centralization in the prime minister’s office with people who in many cases have no idea what they are talking about, “Mr Leslie said. “Unless the prime minister and the finance minister are personally involved, there will be no change.
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Mr Trudeau and Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said the closure of the Canadian embassy in Kabul had made it more difficult to process documents and that the Taliban was blocking the departure of Afghans who had been allowed to resettle in Canada.
Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen has accused Mr Trudeau of abandoning Canada’s Afghan allies in their “darkest hours”.
“You have to have political leadership to make these difficult decisions and you have to tell government officials to do that,” she said in an interview. “There is full political will in parliament to do whatever it takes.
Six former Afghan Canadian military translators told a special committee of the Afghan House of Commons last week that family members and colleagues who had been abandoned had to fill out more than a dozen forms and undergo rigorous security checks. They demanded to be treated in the same way as Ukrainian citizens.
Ottawa is rapidly streamlining the immigration process to help resettle Ukrainians, including abolishing biometric requirements for adults and minors. The government has also removed most of the normal visa requirements and allowed Ukrainians to stay and work in Canada for up to three years.
“The possibility of refusing documentation for people over 60 and under 18 would make the process easier, no doubt,” Mr Thorne said.
Many Afghans, including more than 50 former Canadian embassy security guards, say they received an automatic response confirming their request in early August, but have not heard from since. Veterans who write reference letters for Afghans have had the same experience.
Ottawa managed to rescue about 3,600 Afghan allies before rescue flights ended in late August. In November, Canada set up a special immigration program for the extended families of its former Afghan officials. To qualify, applicants must have been in Afghanistan on or after July 22, 2021. He also set up a program for women activists, human rights defenders and Afghan journalists.
The government is committed to resettling 40,000 refugees from Afghanistan. More than 10,600 have arrived in Canada since August.
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