Lawmakers said Wednesday that they would push back on the Trump administration’s reported plans to offer residence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Afghans who helped the American war effort rather than allowing them to move to the U.S.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, panned the reported plan, which would apply to some 1,100 Afghans currently living in Qatar awaiting U.S. visas, an aid worker told the New York Times. They include interpreters for the U.S. military, former members of the Afghan special forces, and their families.
“If they’ve been people helping us fight, that would be a problem,” Graham said Wednesday when told of the report.
The senior Republican joined lawmakers in both parties to support past legislation to grant permanent legal residency for Afghans who supported U.S. troops against the Taliban.
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The Trump administration halted efforts to resettle Afghans who helped the U.S. last year as part of its crackdown on legal immigration after an Afghan former CIA-backed fighter fatally shot two U.S. National Guard members in Washington, D.C.
A State Department spokesperson did not confirm talks with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but said in a statement that moving Afghans to a third country from Camp As-Sayliyah in Qatar would be “a positive resolution that provides safety for these remaining people to start a new life outside of Afghanistan while upholding the safety and security of the American people.” The spokesperson declined to disclose further details of the negotiations.
Democrats accused their Republican allies of going silent on aid to Afghan allies.
“It’s frustrating to me that people who were fighting Joe Biden, saying he’s moving too slow to get them here, we need to expedite this — I don’t hear them anymore,” said the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Gregory Meeks. “They don’t want to be on a different side than Trump, and anything that they do, they’ve got to check with the administration.”
He and other Democrats said that Afghans who have been properly vetted should be allowed to settle in the U.S. Denying shelter to people who risked their lives for Americans against the Taliban, they said, is a blemish on the nation.
Rep. Pat Ryan, a former Army intelligence officer, said he has been fighting for the release of an Afghan interpreter detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He called the reported plan “disgusting and un-American.”Rep. Jason Crow, an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who’s advocated for Afghan resettlement in the U.S., said that if the reports about the Democratic Republic of the Congo are true, he would fight back.
“We made a sacred promise that if those folks would step up and fight with us and serve with us, that we would take care of them and their families if they needed it,” he said. “And that’s a sacred promise that my fellow veterans and I will fight hard to keep.”
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