Senate committee advances bill with 4,000 visas for Afghan interpreters

The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a spending bill this week that contains 4,000 additional visas for Afghan interpreters, despite the Senate failing to boost the number of visas earlier this month as an amendment to the defense policy bill.

In addition to increasing the number of available visas, the State and Foreign Operations fiscal 2017 spending bill that passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday extends the program to bring Afghan translators to the U.S. for another year.