Draft bill would keep 6,000 Afghan interpreters out of the U.S.

The House Armed Services Committee chairman’s mark would extend the program to bring Afghan translators who served with American troops to the U.S. through the end of 2017, but does not add visas to the total that can be issued.

Betsy Fisher, the deputy policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project, said that there are more than 10,000 Afghans somewhere in the process of applying to come to the U.S., where many hope to escape threats to themselves and their families sparked by their service to the American military. However, there are only about 4,000 visas left to be issued.

“There’s already a significant gap,” she said. “Those are guys who we already made a promise to.”

The administration’s fiscal 2017 budget request asked for an additional 4,000 visas to be made available, she said. Due to operations in Afghanistan, there are also more people serving who could apply in the future.

Thornberry’s draft also tightens eligibility rules for those who can apply for the program. The bill would make eligible only those interpreters who went “traveling off-base with such personnel or performing sensitive and trusted activities for United States military personnel stationed in Afghanistan.”

Fisher said the drastic reduction in eligibility is “distressing,” since it leaves out those who do maintenance or security for U.S. military bases as well as those who work at the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

She said some of the lawmakers who most support the program are those who served themselves and saw how valuable translators were to troops in the field. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., will been “leading the charge” on opposing the changes in Thornberry’s bill, Fisher said.

Moulton’s office did not return a request for comment on whether he would introduce an amendment during Wednesday’s full committee markup to change the language in the chairman’s mark.