An almost two-year effort to help displaced Afghans gain permanent residency in the United States has new life in Washington, D.C., as a bipartisan group of senators seeks to attach a stalled resettlement law onto the annual defense bill.
The Afghan Adjustment Act would provide a path to permanent residency for the almost 80,000 Afghans who've come to the U.S. since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021. Right now, most of them are in the country under a temporary humanitarian parole program that allows them to be in the U.S. but does not offer a clear path to become lawful permanent residents.
The effort is led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (D-S.C.). Klobuchar, speaking from the Senate floor Thursday, urged her colleagues to add the bill to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate is expected to take up this week.
"This bill does right by Afghans who worked alongside our troops and shows the world that the United States of America, when we make a promise, we keep it," Klobuchar said during a speech from the Senate floor Thursday.
"We were right to help these people flee the Taliban and come to the United States and it now falls on us to help provide them with the stability and the security they need to rebuild their lives here," she said.
The bill was re-introduced in both the House and the Senate this month after being first introduced in 2022 but failing to pass over Republican opposition.
Shawn VanDiver, the San Diego Navy veteran who co-founded the nonprofit #AfghanEvac, said this is the best shot the bill's had to being passed.
"It's been almost two years since American forces left Afghanistan but our allies are still there, left behind," VanDiver said Monday in a statement. "Congress can make good on the promises America made by passing the reintroduced Afghan Adjustment Act as part of the NDAA — it's a no-brainer. There is so much support and the time is right."
While the Afghan bill has bi-partisan support, it still faces political challenges.
This month Republican senators, led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), introduced a competing Afghan resettlement bill that provides a path to permanent residency but also seeks to curtail the president's authority to authorize the very humanitarian parole status many evacuated Afghans are currently in the U.S. under.
The NDAA itself also faces challenges. The version the House passed this month included several Republican amendments that led to all but four House Democrats voting against the bill.
Republicans included language that guts Pentagon diversity, equality and inclusion programs. They also added amendments that would restrict transgender healthcare for service members and end travel reimbursements for those who have to travel to obtain legal abortion healthcare that began after the repeal of Roe v. Wade last year.
The Senate version, once passed, will need to be reconciled with the House bill before being sent back to both chambers, a process expected to run through September.
