More Afghans on way to U.S.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military expects to begin receiving new Afghanistan evacuees in the United States next week, as thousands begin to wrap up a three-week pause in Europe and the Middle East to get measles shots.

Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, told reporters Thursday that there are about 14,000 Afghans overseas that are expected to come to the U.S. Right now, he said, there are about 53,000 scattered across eight U.S. military installations in America, which is nearing their total capacity of 64,000.

“I would anticipate that the flights will start here in the very near future,” said VanHerck. “Next week we could see something” because the 21-day vaccination process would be complete.

VanHerck said that there are 4,000 evacuees at the U.S. bases who have completed their medical and other screening processes and have been cleared to leave and resettle in the United States. As they begin to move to their new homes, that will free up room at the bases for those being flown in from overseas.

“We’re relying on the output to ensure that we’d have enough capacity for the additional remaining Afghans coming this way,” he said.

Thousands of Afghans were airlifted out of Afghanistan in a chaotic evacuation effort in the wake of the U.S. military withdrawal and the swift takeover of the country by the Taliban.

But as Afghan refugees began arriving at bases around Europe and the Middle East, cases of measles were detected. U.S. Customs and Border Protection paused all flights of Afghan refugees around Sept. 10.