NJ ready to welcome Afghan refugees, governor says in letter to Pres. Biden
TRENTON, New Jersey (WPVI) -- New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told President Joe Biden the Garden State is ready to welcome Afghan refugees Sunday.
In a letter to the White House, the governor says he believes America's allies in Afghanistan could make enormous contributions to his state.
Governor Murphy wants to welcome Afghans to New Jersey like so many other refugee populations in the past.
SEE ALSO: Marines pull baby over barbed-wire wall at Kabul airport amid chaotic evacuations
He also urged President Biden to speed up and expand the Special Immigrant Visa program to expedite the process.
On Facebook, he wrote, "New Jersey stands ready to provide safe harbor, support, stability and peace to Afghan refugees."
Murphy says he believes the Afghans will make great contributions to the state's culture, community and economy.
On Sunday, President Joe Biden said the U.S.-led evacuation of Americans, at-risk Afghans and others from the Kabul airport accelerated this weekend, although it remains vulnerable to threats posed by the Islamic State extremist group.
One week after the Taliban completed its takeover of Afghanistan by capturing Kabul, Biden said discussions are underway among military officials about potentially extending the airlift beyond Biden's Aug. 31 deadline. "Our hope is we will not have to extend, but there are discussions," he said, suggesting the possibility that the Taliban will be consulted.
Since Aug. 14, one day before the Taliban entered Kabul, the airlift has evacuated 28,000 people, Biden said. He said that included 11,000 who had departed from Kabul in a 36-hour period this weekend, but he did not provide details. The number appeared to include flights by charter and non-U.S. military aircraft as well as the U.S. Air Force C-17 and C-130 transport planes that have been flying daily from the capital. The U.S. military is controlling air traffic on both the civilian and military sides of the airport.
SEE ALSO: Biden says 11,000 flown from Kabul over weekend during Sunday speech
Tens of thousands of people remain to join the airlift, which has been slowed by security issues and U.S. bureaucracy hurdles.
Biden asserted, without a full explanation, that U.S. forces have managed to improve access to the airport for Americans and others seeking to get on flights. He suggested that the perimeter had been extended, widening a "safe zone."
"What I'm not going to do is talk about the tactical changes we're making to make sure we maintain as much security as we can," he said. "We have constantly, how can I say it, increased rational access to the airport, where more folk can get there more safely. It's still a dangerous operation but I don't want to go into the detail of how we're doing that."
Later Biden added: "We've discussed a lot with the Taliban. They've been cooperative in extending some of the perimeter."
He said groups of Americans in Kabul are being moved more efficiently and safely to the airport, but he provided no details.
"Any American who wants to get home, will get home," he asserted.
Earlier Sunday, administration officials said the U.S. military is considering "creative ways" to get Americans and others into the Kabul airport for evacuation from Afghanistan amid "acute" security threats, and the Pentagon on Sunday ordered six U.S. commercial airlines to help move evacuees from temporary sites outside of Afghanistan.
Addressing a criticism cited by many Republicans, Biden said no Afghan evacuees are being flown directly to the United States from Afghanistan without prior screening. He said they are being screened in third countries.
Biden and his top aides have repeatedly cited their concern that extremist groups in Afghanistan will attempt to exploit the chaos around the Kabul airport.
"The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and something we're focused with every tool in our arsenal," said Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
SEE ALSO: Woman gives birth aboard US evacuation flight from Afghanistan
Sullivan said on CNN's "State of the Union" that 3,900 people had been airlifted out of Kabul on U.S. military flights over the past 24 hours. A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public, said those people were flown on a total of 23 flights - 14 by C-17 transports and nine aboard C-130 cargo planes.
That represents an increase from 1,600 flown out aboard U.S. military planes in the previous 24 hours, but remains far below the 5,000 to 9,000 that the military says it has the capacity to airlift daily. Sullivan also said about 3,900 people were airlifted on non-U.S. military flights over the past 24 hours.
The Biden administration has given no firm estimate of the number of Americans seeking to leave Afghanistan. Some have put the total between 10,000 and 15.000. Sullivan on Sunday put it at "several thousand."
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Austin said that as Biden's Aug. 31 deadline for ending the evacuation operation approaches, he will recommend whether to give it more time. Tens of thousands of Americans and others have yet to be flown out of the country.
Austin's interview with ABC aired Sunday but was taped Saturday. In a notice Sunday, the State Department urged people seeking to leave Afghanistan as part of an organized private evacuation effort not come to the Kabul airport "until you have received specific instructions" to do so from the U.S. Embassy's flight organizer. The notice said that others, including American citizens, who have received specific instructions from the embassy to make their way to the airport should do so.
Austin said the airlift would continue for as long as possible.
"We're gonna try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out," Austin said in the interview. "And we've got -- we continue to look at different ways to -- in creative ways -- to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield."
CNN and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
