What's the GOP's message on Afghan refugees? A small group of Trump-inspired Republicans has edged toward nativism, overshadowing colleagues with more nuanced thoughts on the impending crisis
As a pool of potential refugees grows, "there’s always concerns that a terrorist organization can take advantage of a mass movement of people,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Marco Rubio said in a brief interview. “But I don’t know how that gets better by not providing funding for it.”
“I have advocated that we should try and settle these individuals in other countries around Afghanistan that share their values and culture, especially if we can not ensure proper vetting,” freshman Rep. Matt Rosendale Montana’s GOP senator, Steve Daines, disagreed with Rosendale and said recently that “these are refugees that love America … and it’s our duty to ensure that they are allowed a way to get away from the Taliban.”
For example, the State Department has already acknowledged that most Special Immigrant Visa applicants were left behind in Afghanistan when tens of thousands of Afghans who were airlifted from the country as part of a massive evacuation operation in Kabul last month. That’s the population of at-risk Afghans who served as translators and interpreters throughout the two-decade war effort, often at grave personal risk.
For example, a memo circulated by the RSC last week states that the White House requested language that gives the Homeland Security secretary the authority to designate Afghan refugees as legal permanent residents, adding that it would “provide a fast track toward citizenship.” “And it doesn’t change the fact that the [funding bill] still establishes open borders with Taliban-run Afghanistan, allowing anyone coming from Afghanistan to receive welfare benefits and driver’s licenses,” Banks added in a statement. “Conservatives won’t let them pull a fast one on us.”
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