Nearly a year after it closed its embassy in Afghanistan following Kabul's fall to the Taliban in 2021, the federal government was trying to plan flights out of the country to bring in an estimated 12,000 Afghans it believed were "current and future" clients of Immigration Canada, CBC News has learned.Taliban forces patrol near the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport, a day after U.S troops withdrew, in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 31, 2021.
"That is why the Government of Canada continues to work with the UAE, the United States and other countries, as well as NGOs and Canadian partners, to support those who remain in Afghanistan and to find ways to maximize humanitarian assistance and immigration pathways to Canada," the department said.
Citing operational security, the federal government has never disclosed publicly how many of those 12,000 Afghans are still in Afghanistan waiting to leave, or the total number of applicants to its immigration programs for Afghans. On July 21, 2022, less than a month after his office received the memo, Trudeau told journalists at an event in Halifax that "the challenge right now is actually getting people out of Afghanistan.""We're dealing with a territory that's been seized by the Taliban, a listed terrorist entity under Canadian law," then-Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said at the same event. "These are people who don't have interest in helping people destined for Canada.
He then moved to Islamabad, Pakistan in November 2021, where he and his immediate family waited nine months for their paperwork to be finalized before moving to Canada. Afghan said he has gotten his siblings to Iran on temporary visas. They face being sent back in Afghanistan once those expire.CBC News has reached out to the U.S. State Department and the UAE embassy for comment. The UAE did not respond.