While Joe Biden celebrated the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan as an "extraordinary success," the reality is it's anything but. There are still Americans left behind in Afghanistan, to the tune of hundreds, though the White House doesn't actually know just how many. As Lee Brown with The New York Post highlighted, among those left behind include a three year old and dozens of students from Sacramento.
As local news outlet KGO reported:
This three-year-old boy was born near Sacramento; his passport shows he is a US citizen, and he's going through a harrowing ordeal right now, unable to escape Afghanistan. We're hiding his identity and that of his father, a social worker, and other family members who are all US permanent residents, for fear of them being captured by the Taliban.
The outlet's I-Team spoke to veterans advocate James Brown, who has been working to get the toddler and his father out. Rep. Jackie Spier's office (D-CA) has also provided assistance. "They've also made numerous phone calls to the White House, to the Secretary of Defense's Office, and to the Secretary of State's office escalating this family's case all the way to the top for us," Brown told the outlet.
The family even experienced mistreatment at the hands of the Taliban:
Armed with that letter [from Spier], the boy, his father and several other family members approached the airport, but the Taliban attacked.
Brown said, "And they were stopped by a Taliban checkpoint, and they received physical beatings at the gate and they were pushed back where they had to flee and return to a safe house."
There has been an update. "Late Monday, the I-Team learned the boy and family are on the move, after linking with other Americans who are desperate to flee Afghanistan -- without the normal channels of the US government, in the chaos that we left behind," the outlet reported. It's worth repeating that this was "without the normal channels of the US government."
The students are from the Sacramento school district, which has a particularly large Afghan-American population. The San Juan Unified school district staff has indicated that 24 students have not returned to campuses for the new school year.
Rep. Ami Berra's office (D-CA) has also sought to assist with their evacuation efforts. As The Sacramento Bee reported:
After reading The Sacramento Bee’s story about two students stranded overseas, staffers at Sacramento Congressman Ami Bera’s office contacted San Juan Unified and are working with the district to bring students back safely.
“Our office has been in close contact with the San Juan Unified School District, and have urgently flagged the students’ information with the State Department and Department of Defense. We have not received an update from the State Department or the DOD,” read a statement from Bera’s communications director Travis Horne.
Fox News' reporting has updates of some families who have made it out of Afghanistan, though not all are accounted for:
There had been eight families from the district in total in Afghanistan as the U.S. evacuation kicked into gear over the past two weeks. On Monday, just two remained unaccounted for.
"There are a total of seven adults and fourteen children that are safe in their homes in El Cajon," the district announced Tuesday. "Students returned to school this week to the open arms of their teachers and classmates. Two families are in the United States and flying home. One family is safely out of Afghanistan and on their way back to the United States."
Earlier in the day, there were reports that two of the eight El Cajon families may still have been trapped in Afghanistan after the final American plane left Kabul Monday.
"One family with three students was left behind in Afghanistan, and we are exploring strategies to rescue and bring them home," the district said. "The safe return of our Cajon Valley family and raising awareness of the more than 20,000 ‘invisible Americans’ according to our Family and Community Liaisons is our focus now."
Cajon Valley spokesperson Howard Shen had told Fox News earlier Tuesday that the district was "exploring alternative strategies" to get the last two families out because "the airlift is no longer an avenue."
Rep. Darrell Issa's office (R-CA) also assisted with efforts.
Does it sound like these people want to stay behind in Afghanistan, an actual talking point from the White House? It's not likely.