Sydney Kamlager-Dove: “with the NDAA before us, we had an opportunity to do right by the Afghan allies who risked their lives to protect…”

“with the NDAA before us, we had an opportunity to do right by the Afghan allies who risked their lives to protect American servicemembers throughout our 20-year involvement in Afghanistan. After months of bipartisan work and real progress, a key provision of my Enduring Welcome Act, legislation that passed the Foreign Affairs Committee with strong bipartisan support, was set to be included in the NDAA. The amendment is straightforward. It aims to reestablish the Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts that the Trump administration dismantled earlier this year. It would simply allow the CARE office to continue the critical work of helping our Afghan allies escape retaliation and death from the Taliban. Just days before it was set to become law, Republicans quietly stripped this amendment from the NDAA, breaching standard legislative procedure so they could sell out our Afghan allies to protect themselves politically from Trump's wrath. They threw our allies and our military under the bus. Trump's weaponization of the horrific shooting of the National Guardsmen, before we had even gathered the full facts, to scapegoat Afghan allies and immigration communities, has been repugnant. The administration swiftly suspended asylum decisions, halted the issuance of special immigration visas, and prioritized Afghans for deportations.”