Political Quotes

“Last Wednesday, I joined several of my colleagues and hundreds of people in the Congressional Auditorium to watch a gripping new film, ``The Interpreters,'' by VICE News, about the American failure to protect Afghans who helped our soldiers as guides, interpreters, and drivers. Their lives are now at risk as a result of their brave service and our failure to act. For almost a decade, I have been battling to have the United States honor these obligations by effectively implementing the Special Immigrant Visas program authorized by Congress. For a while, we were battling the bureaucracy itself, which issued an embarrassing total of 32 visas for all of 2012 to help save these poor souls trapped in a bureaucratic hell. Since the beginning of the year, this bureaucratic logjam has broken and we have been able to raise it to an average of 400 a month. With that progress has come troubling news. Congress set the cap on these visas artificially low--only 3,000 for the entire fiscal year. These visas are effectively gone now. They are used up. It is not theoretical. We have 6,000 Afghan applicants in the pipeline right now and more who are looking for relief and safety. Recently, Secretary Kerry, in a powerful opinion piece in the LA Times, noted this challenge and called on Congress to act and raise the cap.…”