The Biden administration’s justification—that many of the Afghans who had risked their lives to aid the U.S. military actually wanted to stay—left aid workers, refugee advocates and members of Congress gobsmacked.

The truth, those advocates have told The Daily Beast, is simple and stark: that they simply can’t pay for it.

“We don’t know of any SIV recipients that wanted to stay in Afghanistan,” said James Miervaldis, chairman of No One Left Behind, a group that works to aid Afghan and Iraqi interpreters as they resettle in the United States. “The reason they haven’t quote-unquote ‘exercised the right’ is because they don’t have the money.”…

“The administration’s claim that many Afghans did not want to leave the country earlier is inconsistent with our experience,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, who said that the Afghans her organization was working with were “desperate” to leave Afghanistan and were being blocked by a visa backlog that now tops nearly 70,000 applicants.