41% Americans support increasing the number of special visas for Afghans who aided US forces: Insider poll

Afghan applicants crowd into the Herat Kabul Internet cafe to apply for the Special Immigrant Visa program on August 8, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Insider asked Americans about the number of special visas given to Afghans that helped the US.
41% supported increasing the number of visas from 19,000, the number allotted in a recent House bill.
Just 15% said the number of visas should be decreased.
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Forty-one percent of Americans say the United States should increase the number of special visas issued to Afghans who aided US forces as now laid out in a House bill.

That's according to a new Insider poll conducted through SurveyMonkey Audience, which reached 1,105 respondents on August 16-17.

A plurality of respondents -- about 44% -- said they either wanted the number of visas to stay the same or did not have a position. But just 15% said the US should decrease the number of visas issued.

While the US is currently issuing 11,000 so-called "Special Immigrant Visas," a bill still awaiting a vote in the Senate would set that number to 19,000. Ahead of that bill's vote, respondents were asked "Do you think the number of special visas for Afghans who aided US forces should be changed from the current level of 19,000?"

Significantly increased: 23%
Somewhat increased: 18%
Stay about the same: 20%
Somewhat decrease: 7%
Significantly decrease: 8%
I don't know: 24%

A majority of those who had an opinion about the number of available visas backed increasing it above the current level in the legislation.

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Polling data collected 1,105 respondents August 16-17, 2021 with a 3 percentage point margin of error.

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