Today on Midday, it’s Midday on Foreign Affairs.
Tom's next guest is Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. She formerly served in the Obama Administration as a senior adviser at the State Department and as a policy director for Michelle Obama.
Ms. Vignarajah describes the uncertain prospects for Afghans who have been serving the US military as translators, fixers and other capacities. They are frustrated and fearful of retribution now that the United States is ending its 20-year presence in Afghanistan and beginning final troop withdrawals— even as the country's indigenous, anti-Western Taliban forces are once again ascendant. The ILRS is urging the Biden Administration to begin evacuating America's Afghan allies to safety outside the country.
Ms. Vignarajah also discusses the continuing humanitarian crisis along the US southern border, where thousands of Central American migrant families and asylum seekers endure difficult transit and detention conditions, and face uncertain prospects for safe passage into America.
Krish Vignarajah joins us on our digital line from Syracuse, New York.
