You don't need the 'divided government' on board. Immigration is entirely within the control of the executive. That's why they are now able to let people in directly without a visa once it got urgent enough to give a shit - because it is at the discretion of the department.
As for this specific situation: The Taliban didn't control the country until very recently. Thousands of people have been at the airport, waiting for planes - you may have seen pictures of them crowding the airstrip. The Taliban has not been preventing them from flying out, the lack of planes and lack of letting them on the planes has been preventing them. People have been applying for visas for months, in public, and not getting them. Some of these people have been waiting for years. There is no universe in which any of what you just said is a valid reason for letting everything turn into a dumpster fire in the first place, and there is no way to excuse the existence of this dumpster fire by praising how well they're handling the massive dumpster fire they created.
> Immigration is entirely within the control of the executive.
No, its not; immigration control is a power Constitutionally assigned to Congress and which Congress has extensively prescribed rules on. Courts have repeatedly in recent years invalidated executive immigration actions as violation of legislative rules, both substantive and procedural.
So perhaps I should have said 'the implementation of immigration is entirely within the control of the executive'. There are extensive rules with discretionary holes large enough to admit or deny the entire population of Afghanistan.
For any single individual, the choice on whether to let them in or not is up to the executive branch. It is far more common for them to use their discretionary options to deny people entry, but this is a magical case where they are actually doing the opposite - "DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is using his humanitarian parole authority to allow at-risk Afghans without visas to enter the U.S"
https://twitter.com/camiloreports/status/1430198432434737153...
As for this specific situation: The Taliban didn't control the country until very recently. Thousands of people have been at the airport, waiting for planes - you may have seen pictures of them crowding the airstrip. The Taliban has not been preventing them from flying out, the lack of planes and lack of letting them on the planes has been preventing them. People have been applying for visas for months, in public, and not getting them. Some of these people have been waiting for years. There is no universe in which any of what you just said is a valid reason for letting everything turn into a dumpster fire in the first place, and there is no way to excuse the existence of this dumpster fire by praising how well they're handling the massive dumpster fire they created.