US ramps up efforts to process visas for Afghan allies in wake of Taliban takeover
CNN
The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to process the influx of Afghans rushing to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban overtakes the country.
In recent days, administration officials worked overtime to pull lists of names of special immigrant visa applicants to push through systems and get security checks cleared, and over the course of the week, solicitations went out to the DHS workforce to assist in processing Afghans. Weekly visa issuance increased significantly from March to early August, according to the State Department. But despite months of internal discussions over the process, there was a lack of decision making on how best to handle and expedite visas, an administration official said. Now, it's a scramble.Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.