WASHINGTON —
The USA is working to confirm the accuracy of the listing of passengers aboard a constitution airplane carrying greater than 100 U.S. residents and lawful everlasting residents evacuated from Afghanistan, the U.S. State Division mentioned on Wednesday, after the flight’s organizers mentioned Washington denied it touchdown rights.
“Our embassy employees within the UAE has been working across the clock to confirm the accuracy of the passenger manifest and is coordinating with DHS/Customs and Border Safety on the bottom to make sure the passengers are screened and vetted earlier than they’re permitted to fly to the USA,” a State Division spokesperson mentioned.
“We anticipate the passengers to proceed onward journey tomorrow morning,” the spokesperson added.
Bryan Stern, a founding father of the nonprofit group Undertaking Dynamo that chartered the flight out of Kabul, mentioned late on Tuesday that the Division of Homeland Safety’s Customs and Border Safety company had denied touchdown rights for the constitution flight in the USA.
In a subsequent interview on Wednesday, Stern mentioned that DHS had recognized to authorities at Abu Dhabi airport within the United Arab Emirates one particular person among the many evacuees as “an issue,” however he didn’t know definitively whether or not this was the explanation that touchdown rights have been denied.
“DHS reached out to the airport and mentioned, ‘This man would not fly.’ They gave me his title. We went and located him. Instructed him he could not fly and took him off the manifest. However I do not know if that was the difficulty,” Stern mentioned.
The DHS didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Stern’s group chartered a airplane from Kam Air, a personal Afghan airline, that flew his group of 117 individuals, together with 59 youngsters, to Abu Dhabi airport.
He and the evacuees have been taken off the jet, which has since returned to Kabul, and have been being stored in a room with restricted motion underneath the watch of Emirati cops, he mentioned.
“We’re in custody as we converse in Abu Dhabi. All of us are locked up right here collectively,” Stern mentioned.
Stern mentioned they’re scheduled to depart on a morning flight on Thursday to Chicago and that the State Division “graciously” had agreed to pay for his group’s seats.
Twenty-eight U.S. residents, 83 lawful everlasting residents – inexperienced card holders – and 6 individuals with U.S. Particular Immigration Visas granted to Afghans who labored for the U.S. authorities throughout the 20-year battle in Afghanistan have been aboard the Kam Air flight, Stern mentioned.
The State Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Stern’s present scenario and on the flight value.
Stern’s group is one in all a number of that emerged from advert hoc networks of U.S. army veterans, present and former U.S. officers and others that shaped to bolster final month’s U.S. evacuation operation they seen as chaotic and badly organized.
“All U.S.-bound flights should observe the established security, safety and well being protocols earlier than they’re cleared for departure,” a DHS spokesperson mentioned. “This course of requires flight manifests to be verified earlier than departure to the U.S. to make sure all passengers are screened appropriately.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has mentioned its high precedence is repatriating Individuals and inexperienced card holders who have been unable to depart Afghanistan within the U.S. evacuation operation final month.
Stern had deliberate to switch the passengers to a chartered Ethiopian Airways airplane for an onward flight to the USA that he mentioned the customs company cleared to land at New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport.
The company then modified the clearance to Dulles Worldwide Airport exterior Washington earlier than denying the airplane touchdown rights anyplace in the USA, Stern mentioned.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; writing by Jonathan Landay and Humeyra Pamuk, modifying by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Stephen Coates)
