Rep. Seth Moulton will introduce an amendment to the fiscal 2017 defense bill to loosen restrictions on which Afghan translators are eligible to come to the U.S.
The House draft of the National Defense Authorization Act would tighten the rules on who can apply to the program to include only those Afghan interpreters who served with the U.S. military and went “traveling off-base with such personnel or performing sensitive and trust activities for United States military personnel stationed in Afghanistan.”
But Moulton, D-Mass., and a former Marine infantry officer who served four tours in Iraq, wants to change that.
“Moulton will offer an amendment to remove the narrowing of eligibility requirements included in the chairman’s mark which would prevent hundreds of Afghans who have risked their lives working for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan now facing daily death threats from even being considered for resettlement in the United States,” Carrie Rankin, Moulton’s communications director, told the Washington Examiner.
Betsy Fisher, deputy policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the language in the chairman’s mark leaves out Afghans who do maintenance or security on U.S. bases as well as those who work at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
The House Armed Services Committee will hold its mark up of the bill on Wednesday.
The House draft also does not increase the number of visas available, even though 10,000 Afghans are applying for a special immigrant visa and only about 4,000 visas remain to be allocated.
This leaves about 6,000 Afghans in “imminent danger,” Rankin said.
Because jurisdiction over the number of visas is shared between the House Armed Services Committee, the Homeland Security Committee and Judiciary Committee, the armed services committee marking up the bill on Wednesday will not consider an increase in the number of available visas.
However, Moulton, along with more than a dozen lawmakers, plans to introduce an amendment on the House floor at a later date to raise the quota, Rankin said.
The administration’s fiscal 2017 budget request asked for an additional 4,000 visas to be made available.
