The Washington Examiner: Lawmakers Push to Increase Visas for Afghan Interpreters

The fiscal 2017 defense policy bill provides fewer than half of the visas for Afghan interpreters that the administration asked for, sending advocates and lawmakers back to the drawing board on how to allow the 12,000 who have applied to come to the U.S.

The administration asked for 4,000 visas in fiscal 2017 to bring Afghans who had worked as interpreters for American troops to the U.S. Many are facing threats of death or violence against themselves and their families because of their work with the American military.

But the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act includes only 1,500 visas, meaning the State Department will likely run out of visas after just a couple months, according to Betsy Fisher, policy director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

"The hope is that further visas will be allocated in the coming months because we expect state will be able to issue more than 1,500 and the supply will be exhausted before the end of the fiscal year," she said.

More than 12,000 people are in some stage of the application process, according to numbers provided by the project.

"It is no exaggeration to say that this is a matter of life and death as Afghans who served the U.S. mission continue to be systematically hunted down by the Taliban," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. "I'm very relieved that additional visas will be made available in this legislation. However, the number of visas needed for those in danger far surpasses what's provided in this bill."

The bill also narrows the eligibility requirements for the program, giving preference to those who worked outside the wire, and authorizes the program for four more years through Dec. 31, 2020.

"The Afghan [Special Immigrant Visa] program's four-year reauthorization is certainly a step in the right direction, but with only 1,500 new visas and added eligibility restrictions, we are still leaving behind at least 5,000 people who have risked their lives for us," said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and a combat veteran. "I commit to continuing to push for more visas to be added because I would not be here today without the courageous translators who worked with me."

Fisher said there's uncertainty about whether President-elect Trump will continue to support the program once he is sworn in in January, especially given some of his comments on the campaign trail about stopping Muslim immigrants from coming to the U.S.

"Support for this program from the top levels of government is crucial to making sure these folks can get to safety after they've come at risk because of their work," she said. "There was certainly some rhetoric about Muslim immigrants which would be extremely problematic for this program, but at this point we don't have any specific policy proposals, so we don't know what the administration will do with this program."

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