The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2022 29 WASHINGTON, D.C. A Race Against the Clock Elizabeth Rood As the deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghani- stan approached in the summer of 2021, urgency increased for bringing to safety thousands of Afghan citizens who were at risk because of their work for or on behalf of the U.S. diplomatic and military mission over the past 20 years. The Biden administra- tion faced a backlog of more than 17,000 Special Immigrant Visa applications, each representing lives to be saved. On July 19, as districts across Afghanistan were falling to the Taliban’s military advance, we—the original Afghanistan Coor- dination Task Force—started our race against the clock. Led by Ambassador Tracey Jacobson and under the auspices of the State Department Executive Secretariat Operation Center’s Cri- sis Management and Strategy Office (S/ES-O), our “Operation Allies Refuge” team included members from the Department of State’s bureaus of South and Central Asian Affairs; Consular Affairs; Population, Refugees, and Migration; Administration; Global Public Affairs; Diplomatic Security; and the Center for Analytics. The team was joined by interagency partners from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service, NORTHCOM, CENTCOM, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Public Health Service. Our tightly focused mission was to manifest SIV applicants and holders on charter flights and bring them to the United States for resettlement. Reaching back to our home bureaus and agencies, the task force catalyzed innovations that will have lasting impact on how the State Department does business. We created a custom-built software application—“Hummingbird”—for gathering data about applicants, communicating with them, manifesting them for flights and tracking their progress from predeparture to resettlement. To overcome limitations on U.S. Embassy Kabul consular services, we collaborated with Consular Affairs and CBP to use the first “foil-less” visas, allowing SIV applicants to be admit- ted as lawful permanent residents without a physical visa. We worked with Embassy Kabul to streamline panel medical exams and COVID-19 testing for a 24-hour turnaround. We imple- mented a brand-new legislative waiver of panel medical exams, allowing SIV applicants to fulfill this requirement upon arrival when exams were impossible. The first SIV flight departed Kabul on July 29, only 10 days after ACTF’s formation; nine more flights followed by Aug. 15. Because we had the right team, an inspiring leader and a clear mission, we solved problems. We worked with Embassy Kabul and Embassy Doha to sur- mount the obstacles our travelers faced along their journeys. Overcoming legal and bureaucratic challenges, we organized the transportation, reception and temporary residence of SIV applicants and their families at Fort Lee in Virginia, where they were adjusted to Special Immigrant status. Our PRM part- ners brought in the International Organization for Migration and resettlement agencies to counsel the arriving immigrants, connect them with resettlement benefits and transport them to their final destinations. By Aug. 15, we had transported 1,962 Special Immigrants to the United States from Afghanistan. Having doubled the speed of our operations, we were on course to accelerate our tempo to two flights a day when the Taliban reached the gates of Kabul. Soon the Afghan government collapsed, U.S. forces deployed to secure and take control of Hamid Karzai International Airport, and the historic noncombatant evacuation operation began. The original ACTF, which already contained the inter- agency components needed, became the launching pad for the immensely larger evacuation task force. We devoted ourselves with even greater energy to the crisis, forming the core of the new task force’s units. The technological tools, operating proce- dures and interagency relationships we created blazed the trail for the expanded enterprise that, by the end of the evacuation on Aug. 31, had moved more than 120,000 U.S. citizens, Afghans and third-country nationals to safety. Elizabeth Rood is a Senior Foreign Service officer currently assigned as a faculty adviser to the U.S. Army War College. She served multiple tours in Afghanistan and was the deputy director of the original Afghanistan Coordination Task Force. ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/GRYNOLD