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US Shuts Down Afghan Student Exchange Program

Last year, half fled program for Canada

By Tim Karan,  Newser Staff

Posted Jul 15, 2011 3:40 PM CDT
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(Newser) – The State Department has suspended its student exchange program with Afghanistan as more participants started abandoning the program and fleeing to Canada instead of returning home. The Youth Exchange and Study program has brought hundreds of Afghan students to the US since 2004, but the State Department quietly put it on hold this winter, reports NPR.

As the US troop drawdown looms, many Afghan students worry about their future at home—where having visited America is often stigmatizing. Canada allows minors to seek asylum within its borders, but fleeing students were causing a "brain drain" back home. "We certainly had to weigh the cost and benefit, because the benefit of these kids coming back is huge, really huge," says a representative for the US Embassy in Kabul. "But the cost of them not coming back is also huge for this country. This year, we decided that the costs are outweighing the benefits."

The US quietly suspended its student exchange program with Afghanistan last winter.
The US quietly suspended its student exchange program with Afghanistan last winter.   (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Colin Perkel)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 6 comments
WallyEFunk
Jul 15, 2011 11:41 PM CDT
Educated them and then there National resourse should be return home. Teach them of fish and they can feed themselves, and teach there countrymen.
hopeandchange
Jul 15, 2011 7:34 PM CDT
So letting a few hundred  of the intelligent elite of the Islamic world come to America to learn about freedom is not "cost effective" but we can let millions illegal ignorant Mexicans into our country so they can make it  into a Mexican ghetto is fine.   Then people wonder why I think Obama is a madman.
Cat-Lover
Jul 15, 2011 6:50 PM CDT
Truth be told, the Taliban are doing nothing different from what the Romans did to the Christians, what the Christians did to the "heretics" and Jews, and what the current religious rightwing in the USA wants to do to all Americans.

 
Afghanistan • Kabul • troop withdrawal • troop drawdown • Youth Exchange and Study program

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