News from the Week of January 9

Here’s another round-up of what we’ve been doing and watching this week, from the news and around the web:

As we take our first steps into 2017, one of our key focuses will be to boldly renew the fight to protect our Afghan wartime allies. As you might remember, last year Congress reauthorized the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program that allowing them and their families to find safe haven in the United States. However, Congress decided that only 1,500 more of these allies would get the chance to apply—leaving over 13,000 of our Afghan partners with little to no options in the face of mortal danger.

Refugees Deeply shares the story of one such ally, 28 year-old Fared, who worked with U.S. and Canadian forces as an interpreter. “If we see you guys outside the base, we will hang you up and kill you.” That’s what the local Taliban told Fared in his home province of Kunar. Deeply reports that Fared remains in hiding, waiting desperately for his Special Immigrant Visa to be processed.

You can count on Vets for American Ideals to set Congress straight. VFAI founder Scott Cooper said as much when he sat down with Refugees Deeply: “When we are out of visas, that’s a three-alarm fire, and you will see us all over, doing everything we can, calling out every card we can.” Cooper’s sights are set on Congress as they begin to take up new budget legislation, where there’s an opportunity to push lawmakers to allow more visas.

The SIV program has large bi-partisan support on the Hill, as few would want to seem deaf to the calls of our military leadership and veterans. “They would have every veteran’s organization in the world calling them out on this,” Cooper told Deeply. Yet despite voices from both sides of the aisle showing support, increasing visas remains politically difficult.

This American Life’s Ira Glass sheds more light on the million-dollar question, namely, who would opposes a program that honors an obligation to our wartime allies—and why? To answer, Glass interviews Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA), a former Marine infantry officer with deployments to Iraq. “It’s just anti-immigrant sentiment… there’s a lot of fear out there among my colleagues right now,” said Moulton. “[Lawmakers] are afraid that if they stand up for a program like this, it’ll be used against them in some future election.”

Glass also interviews Kirk Johnson, a former government employee who fought to get visas for Iraqis that worked on his development projects. Johnson sees the problem in similar dimensions, “Can we at least have one shade of nuance and understanding that not every Muslim is trying to kill us and that for years—for a decade—people risked their lives to try to help us?”

Vets continue to lead the way on this issue. We shine the spotlight on VFAI leader Kelsey Campbell, now a second-year law student and Tony Patino Fellow at The University of California-Hastings. Kelsey was instrumental in amplifying veteran voices in Washington during December’s VFAI Leader convening. “We told our stories of service and friendship with the local interpreters. We also explained the negative effects of not providing these interpreters with refuge,” Campbell told The UC Hastings News. Campbell, an Air Force veteran who deployed with an intelligence team to Baghdad in 2007, developed a relation from her own interpreter, Sura.

“Sura was an invaluable part of the success of our missions. Not only was it incredibly brave for anyone to go on patrols with a foreign military, Sura did so as a young teenage woman still immersed in college life,” said Kelsey. “She taught me the meaning of true bravery and I traveled to Washington to help make sure that those like Sura are provided the necessary protections after their service.”

Have reactions to share, or want to learn how you can be involved in our efforts to raise veteran voices in support of refugees? Find us on Facebook or Twitter, or contact us at vfai@humanrightsfirst.