Philippines Likely to House Afghan Refugees Headed for the US

Afghan refugees who were employed by the United States before its military withdrawal in 2021 and their families are likely to be temporarily housed in the Philippines while their U.S. special immigrant visas are processed.

The deal, which the Philippine presidential office will decide on next month, could strengthen warming ties between the Philippines and the United States, but has received significant domestic opposition since it was announced last month.

Manila’s envoy to Washington said that, in October, the Philippines received a request to temporarily host thousands of Afghans as they wait to obtain the U.S. visas, which would be processed in the Philippines.

“The information that we so far have received is that there are about 50,000, which includes the families of the Afghan citizens who worked with the United States government,” Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez told CNN Philippines in an interview.

Romualdez later said the government would make its decision “as late as July 15,” after sending a memorandum to the desk of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. for his approval or disapproval.

The agreement would be a significant step in further boosting ties between Manila and Washington, which has found a willing partner in Marcos after struggling to form strong bonds with his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte, miffed by U.S. criticism of his deadly war on drugs, signed numerous investment deals with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, allowed Chinese vessels to enter Philippine waters in the South China Sea, and announced his intention to cancel a longstanding agreement allowing U.S. troops to visit the country and train with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He later canceled his own cancellation of the agreement, leaving it intact.

Marcos, in his first year as president, has taken a firm stance against Beijing and instead swung Manila back into Washington’s embrace. In April, the Philippines announced the United States would be allowed to temporarily use five additional Philippine military bases, including three in the north of Luzon, near the Taiwan Strait.

If the Philippines accepts the U.S. request, it would help Washington solve a headache as it scrambles to processes tens of thousands of visas for Afghan nationals and their families who were left behind or later fled the country after the U.S. military withdrawal.

The Marcos administration’s envoy to Washington has insisted that Philippine-U.S. ties will not be affected should Manila decide not to grant the U.S. request.

“There is mutual respect, in my view, between the U.S. and the Philippines, especially now [that] they know that the Philippines is a sovereign nation and that we have our own law, we have things that we want,” Romualdez said.

It is unclear, however, whether the Philippines will receive any assistance from the United States in exchange for housing the refugees. Romualdez insisted the aid is “purely humanitarian in nature,” emphasizing that the act will help Afghans “whose lives are in danger.”

The proposal has led to backlash from several sitting senators, who are concerned about the potential security risk in a country with a history of Islamic separatist rebellions in southern Mindanao, along with the use of government resources to house and process the refugees. Vice President Sara Duterte and her father, the former president, have also criticized the idea.

Other politicians, however, have been supportive, citing the country’s history of taking in Jewish refugees fleeing World War II and Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s, along with Rohingya Muslims more recently.

Senator Francis Tolentino, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, said the refugees would pose no security risk as they would be quarantined. He also said accepting them would bolster the country’s human rights record.

“If we accept people in need from Afghanistan, we need not prove anything else,” he told ABS-CBN. “This is the highest level of compliance with international humanitarian laws and human rights obligation[s] of the Philippines.”