[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6165-6166]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     SPECIAL IMMIGRANT VISA PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, for over the last decade, I have been 
working with a bipartisan group to deal with helping some of the 
foreign nationals in Afghanistan who helped Americans' mission be able 
to escape the tender mercies of the Taliban and others with long 
memories. These are men and women who helped us as guides, as 
translators, people who provided on-base security, construction 
workers, and truck drivers--a vast array of people who helped us with 
our vital mission. As we have scaled down and moved on, it has left 
these people vulnerable. We have example after example where the 
Taliban and al Qaeda have threatened them, have attacked their 
families, held them for ransom, tortured them, and, in some cases, 
killed them.
  We have implemented a Special Immigrant Visa program that has enabled 
over 8,500 people to get to safety to protect themselves and their 
families. I have witnessed some of these tearful reunions where a guide 
returned, was able to escape to the United States, and united with the 
person, the soldier, whose life he saved. This happens time after time.
  Unfortunately, the process is hopelessly tangled. It is slow, and it 
is bureaucratic. We have over 10,000 people still in the pipeline. 
Every year we struggle to be able to have sufficient visas authorized 
to be able to help thousands more who are at risk.

[[Page 6166]]

  We have the National Defense Authorization Act that is coming forward 
that would pose another problem to help those who put their faith in 
us. This version would leave out all individuals who worked with the 
State Department and the USAID--critical parts of our mission in 
Afghanistan. It would leave off all the on-base staff who worked in 
direct support of the Department of Defense, people who did 
construction, firefighters, on-base security, maintenance, and 
administrative support, people whose services were vital and whose 
service to the United States is well known and who are at risk.
  We are hopeful that as this bill comes to the floor that the House 
will be able to work with us to modify these unnecessary restrictions, 
to give more time to process and allow more people to come to safety.
  We have a moral obligation to protect people who put their lives on 
the line to support Americans in these troubled areas. I would hope 
that we would, once again, be able to make necessary adjustments to be 
able to try and help more come to safety.
  I have been working with my good friend Adam Kinzinger, who 
represents some of the newer Members of the House who actually served 
in theater, who are committed to helping people whom they saw help us.
  I would hope, as the process comes forward, we can consider 
amendments to be able to reduce some of these restrictions; and then I 
hope, as it works its way through the legislative process to the Senate 
that does not have anything in their version of the bill speaking to 
the Special Immigrant Visas, that we will be able to do our job to make 
sure that we are not having people at risk, their families threatened, 
and undermining the credibility of the United States.
  Remember, around the world, foreign nationals help us with our 
missions; and if we send a message that we are not going to stick with 
them when the going gets tough, then they are going to be much less 
likely to help us wherever it is in these trouble spots. America will 
be more vulnerable as people who have already helped us are at risk. We 
can do better.

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