Why Is Congress Abandoning Our Afghan Interpreters to Their Fate?

Jeane Shaheen

June 23, 2016

A Broken Promise in Afghanistan

LIKE many Americans, I am still haunted by images from the last days of the United States’ withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. Newscasts showed South Vietnamese desperately trying to scale the walls of our embassy in Saigon to board the last helicopter flights out of the country. The fear in their eyes was chilling. Many of these Vietnamese had assisted the American mission. As the North Vietnamese advanced on the city, these people knew that they faced a harsh fate if they were left behind.

For the last three years, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and I have been trying to prevent history from repeating itself, this time in Afghanistan.

Since the American-led invasion in 2001, our service members and diplomats have relied on thousands of Afghans, particularly as interpreters. These are brave men and women who put themselves and their families at risk to help American officials and troops accomplish their missions and return home safely. Implicit in their willingness to help the United States is an agreement that they’ll be protected.

The State Department’s Special Immigrant Visa program allows these Afghans to seek refuge in the United States. These visas are reserved for men and women who undergo rigorous screening and can demonstrate at least two years of faithful and valuable service to the United States.

Yet while nearly 10,000 Afghans are still trying to obtain special visas, Congress is on course to abruptly end the program.Photo

An Afghan interpreter, center, with American soldiers in Pech Valley, Afghanistan, in 2009. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Last week, the Senate followed the House in passing a defense bill that discontinues the program. That means that the State Department will most likely run out of visas, which have provided an escape route for more than 9,000 Afghans and their immediate families, by the end of the year.

In previous years, Senator McCain and I succeeded in persuading our Senate colleagues to provide more visas. But this year has been different: We’ve heard objections to the cost and questions about why the additional visas were necessary. A compromise was eventually reached that would have provided an additional 2,500 visas, but it was blocked by just one senator, Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, who held the amendment hostage to get a vote on an unrelated issue. That brought our efforts to a dead halt: There will be no extension of the visa program in the annual defense authorization bill.

The threat to these Afghans is all too real. Because of their service to our country, they and their families are being hunted down by the Taliban. Some interpreters have been killed and wounded while waiting for an American visa. Many are scared to leave their homes, shop in open markets or take their children to school. Some have experienced the unimaginable horror of having family members murdered because of their association with our government.

Abandoning these Afghans would not just be a stain on our national honor, but also would carry profound strategic costs. United States forces have always relied on local allies to accomplish military and diplomatic missions, and will need this support in the future. But why would anyone agree to help the United States if we have a record of breaking our promises and abandoning those who assist us? Understandably, our military leaders — past and present — are very concerned.

The former commander of United States forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and his predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, have sent urgent pleas to Congress. Our current commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, has warned congressional leadership that breaking our promise “could have grave consequences for these individuals and bolster the propaganda of our enemies.”

There is still an opportunity to keep the program alive. The Senate will soon consider legislation to fund the State Department, and as a member of the subcommittee that will write this bill, I will do my best to see that it extends the visa program.

By renewing this program, Congress has an opportunity to send a potent message to the world that we will not let fear and prejudice prevent us from staying true to our nation’s principles and promises. By protecting our Afghan friends from reprisals, and welcoming them into our American family, we can assert that the United States is still a great and good country — and that we do not abandon those who risked their lives to serve with us.

Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic senator from New Hampshire, is a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.