Lawmakers rush to aid those who helped U.S. forces

WASHINGTON — As President Biden’s September deadline for ending the long war in Afghanistan approaches, a bipartisan coalition in Congress is stepping up efforts to ensure that Afghans who face retribution there for working alongside U.S. troops and personnel are able to immigrate to the United States.

The group of Republicans and Democrats is racing to put in place legislation to help the “Afghan allies,” as they are often called, before U.S. troops go home, leaving those allies unprotected against revenge attacks by the Taliban. The lawmakers want to make it easier for the Afghans to qualify for special visas, to expedite the process of obtaining one and to get them out of Afghanistan as soon as possible while they await authorization to live legally in the United States.

More than 18,000 Afghans who have worked as interpreters, drivers, engineers, security guards and embassy clerks for the United States during the war are stuck in a bureaucratic morass after applying for Special Immigrant Visas — available to people who face threats because of work for the U.S. government — with some waiting as long as six or seven years for their applications to be processed.

The number of backlogged cases doesn’t count family members, an additional 53,000 people, or the anticipated surge in applications as U.S. troops withdraw.

“We’re frustrated here as lawmakers, especially those of us who served and want to help the people who helped us,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, ROhio, a colonel in the Army Reserve who worked with Iraqi translators when he served in Iraq as a combat surgeon in 2005 and 2006.

Wenstrup is part of the Honoring Our Promises Working Group — made up of 10 Democrats and six Republicans — that spearheaded legislation introduced Thursday that would expedite Special Immigrant Visas from Afghanistan and expand the number available to 19,000, from 11,000.

The bill would expand the universe of eligible Afghans by removing what its proponents call “burdensome” application requirements, including a “credible sworn statement” of a specific threat and proof of a “sensitive and trusted” job. Instead, the measure would in effect stipulate that any Afghan who helped the U.S. government by definition faced retribution, and should be able to apply for a visa.