Biden Administration to Relocate Afghan Workers to the US

Afghanistan: US troops withdraw, Taliban advance 2:57

(CNN) -

Joe Biden's administration plans to relocate a group of Afghans who have applied for special immigrant visas (SIVs) to Fort Lee, a US military installation in Virginia this week, according to two sources. familiar with the matter.

Members of Congress have been notified of this plan, according to sources familiar with the talks.

This will be the first batch of SIV applicants to be relocated from Afghanistan, as part of the Biden administration's effort to relocate thousands of Afghan interpreters and translators who worked for the United States during its nearly two-decade military campaign in Afghanistan, and now they have reason to fear for their safety.

The Biden administration is calling this effort "Operation Allied Shelter."

• Biden has just a few weeks left to make key decisions that will shape the future of Afghanistan

It is not clear exactly how many Afghans will make it to Fort Lee, but these Afghans are well advanced in the extensive vetting process they must go through to get visa approval, the sources said.

"There are 2,500 SIV applicants and their family members who have been approved through the security investigation process," a State Department spokesperson told CNN last Friday, and a portion of them could be relocated to a military base in the United States. United.

While at the military base, they would receive a medical checkup, the spokesman said.

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This is a small portion of the total SIV applicants;

there are around 20,000 Afghans who have applied for SIV visas.

About half of those 20,000 are in the preliminary stages of the process, which means that "approximately 10,000 of these applicants must take action before the US government can begin to process their case," the spokesman said.

The other Afghan applicants who are later in the process, but have not been approved through the security screening process, will go to US military bases abroad or to third countries, the spokesman said.

Afghan refugees