Ahead of next week’s one-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul, both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives have introduced the long-awaited bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act. For months, Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area (LSSNCA) has rallied alongside Afghans, veterans, frontline civilians, fellow resettlement agencies, and welcoming communities across the country advocating for the introduction – and passage of an adjustment act.
Operation Allies Welcome evacuated more than 70,000 Afghans to the United States through humanitarian parole. This status does not provide a pathway to legal permanent residency. In addition to creating a pathway for permanent legal residency, the Afghan Adjustment Act will also establish a Task Force to oversee relocation and resettlement of eligible Afghans from Afghanistan over the next 10 years and require the Department of State to respond to Congressional inquiries related to Special Immigration Visa (SIV) applications and expand SIV eligibility.
LSSNCA is optimistic about this step forward. We see what happens when we work together, and we now call on members of Congress to vote in support of this long overdue and much needed bill, and to support the approval of the thousands of outstanding SIV and parole applications. We see how the uncertainty about their legal status, and their families, weigh heavily on our Afghan neighbor’s hearts.
Just as this introduction did not happen overnight, nor will the passage. LSSNCA will continue offering pro se asylum clinics to assist the more the 4,500 Afghan Allies we’ve resettled in applying for asylum. We need 200 volunteers this month alone. Please sign-up to join in ensuring our Afghan neighbors remain in the U.S.
