Veterans and other advocates pushing for support for Afghans evacuated to the U.S. in 2021 are fuming after that support was left out of a major bill that passed the Senate — again.
Worsening the sting this time is that the Afghan proposal — which would provide those here now under a temporary legal status a path to permanent residency — was originally in the bill but got taken out when a bipartisan agreement to tighten immigration laws collapsed.
The whirlwind couple of weeks has essentially put veterans’ efforts back at square one and left Afghans still waiting for the safety and stability they were promised for helping the U.S. military during America’s longest war.
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“It really speaks to the inability of Congress to do really much of anything at this point and to really solve any issues of substance,” one veterans advocate told Military.com on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about a subject they are continuing to work on with lawmakers. “I know a lot of veterans — including I served in Afghanistan myself as a Marine — just a lot of my friends I served with are following this pretty closely, and it’s really even further eroded the trust in government institutions and in leadership.
“A lot of people are left just kind of feeling, ‘What next?'” they said.
Veterans have been working for two years to…
