[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5246-5247]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SPECIAL IMMIGRANT VISAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. In the aftermath of the 10th anniversary of the war 
in Iraq this spring, those of us who oppose the war, as those who 
thought it justified, are all sorting through what happened. More 
important, we are united in our support for our men and women in 
uniform who fought that heroic effort regardless of our feelings about 
the war's justification or history's verdict.
  We have an obligation to all those who served to smooth their reentry 
and to minimize the price they paid for that war.
  But there is another group who put themselves at risk for the wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan. I am speaking of the Iraqi and Afghan nationals 
who worked with the American soldiers--thousands who were shoulder to 
shoulder with our troops, often in the most difficult of circumstances. 
They provided services as guides and interpreters that literally made 
the difference as to whether our soldiers lived or died.
  I've talked to returning servicepeople who made clear how important 
it was that they had that help and how grateful they were to the Iraqis 
and Afghans who played those vital roles. I've worked with some of 
those soldiers to try and bring to America--to safety--some of those 
people who worked with them.
  There is another group who knows about their contributions--the 
hostile elements still on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are 
people with long memories, who have vowed to take retribution for what 
they felt was an act of betrayal. Countless foreign nationals who 
worked with us have paid the price. They, along with members of their 
families, have been attacked, kidnapped, and killed.
  We have an obligation to get them out of harm's way.
  That is why I worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
and on both sides of the Capitol in 2007 to create a special 
immigration visa program to enable them to come safely to the United 
States. It's a program not just for Iraqis; but starting in 2008, it 
was extended to Afghans as well--anyone who faced an ongoing and 
serious threat as a result of their employment for and on behalf of the 
United States Government. These two programs have enabled us to save 
the lives of these brave Iraqis and Afghans who often were in the 
heaviest fighting and whose contributions were most critical.
  But we're facing two serious problems:
  One, the programs are set to expire--for Iraq, September 30; for 
Afghanistan, 1 year later. Even more critically, we need to make sure 
that the special immigration visas, the SIVs, that have already been 
authorized are utilized. The processing has been incredibly slow.
  Recently, joined by 18 of my colleagues of both parties, including 
six of our colleagues who were veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, we 
urged the administration to work with us to extend and reform the visa 
program. Let's cut through the extensive paperwork, the numerous 
agencies and timelines involved with all the background checks, provide 
the transparency to applicants so they know where they're at, and 
address the adverse decisions by a chief of missions so people have a 
chance to correct the record.
  Make no mistake--this is urgent.
  Just yesterday, on the front page of The New York Times, there was 
the story about an Afghan interpreter named Sulaiman, who has been 
working with us in Afghanistan for over a decade in over 300 missions 
in highly dangerous Special Operations assignment. Over the course of 
the last few years, the Taliban has attempted to kill Sulaiman three 
times; but despite his exemplary service and the extreme threat to his 
life, that visa we created is not functioning for him. After 2 years, 
he remains in limbo, with no visa and the program set to expire. Only 
22 percent of the Iraqi visas and 12 percent of the Afghan visas have 
been issued. These are ready to go.
  Last fall, The Post reported that over 5,000 documentarily-complete 
Afghan applications remained in a backlog. No doubt, the past 
performance is abysmal, but we have an obligation to extend and reform 
the programs and to make sure we give the resources necessary to deal 
with the understandable paperwork involved.
  This bipartisan issue offers Members of Congress and the 
administration the

[[Page 5247]]

chance to work together to save lives and ensure the safety of our 
troops currently serving in harm's way and future missions abroad. 
Otherwise, no one in their right mind is ever going to cooperate with 
U.S. forces under these circumstances.

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