Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts Authorization Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge and thank my Republican colleague from Indiana (Mr. Baird) for joining me on this bipartisan legislation to establish the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts Authorization Act, H.R. 8368.

Over the course of our 20-year mission in Afghanistan, more than 300,000 Afghans worked shoulder to shoulder with U.S. servicemembers, diplomats, and aid workers. They provided valuable support for nearly 800,000 U.S. troops who rotated through Afghanistan. They served primarily as translators, guides, and informal advisers to U.S. personnel on the ground.

These are, in every sense of the word, our valued allies. They stood with us through difficult conditions, advancing U.S. interests.

In August 2021, the U.S. conducted an historic and heroic evacuation that carried 70,000 Afghans to safety along with tens of thousands of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, as well as citizens from other countries.

Since July 2021, the State Department has worked around the clock to relocate U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents from Afghanistan who wanted to depart and who were eligible Afghan allies who worked with us.

Secretary Blinken has made this a top priority for the Department and has said that there is no deadline for this important work. He underscores the commitment that the Biden administration has to this effort and the promise of Operation Enduring Welcome.

In 2022, to solidify these relocation efforts, the State Department established a specialized office called the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, appropriately known as CARE.

CARE serves as the hub for a whole-of-government priority, working closely with various Federal departments and agencies, international partners, veterans groups, former diplomats, government officials, and NGOs to ensure the safe and efficient relocation of individuals who have qualified to immigrate to the U.S., either as special immigrants or refugees, during the 20-year U.S. mission to Afghanistan.

The Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program, also stood up by Congress and relying on our regular reauthorization of additional visa numbers to meet demand, long faced challenges and processing delays, but the situation changed dramatically early in 2021, when the Biden administration ramped up resources to clear an SIV processing backlog that had accumulated in the prior administration.

Working together, Congress and the administration have prioritized and streamlined the Afghan SIV program to meet evolving demand and uphold our moral obligation.

In fiscal year 2023, the administration issued the most SIVs in a single year since the start of the program in 2009. In the most recent report, the Department issued 1,894 SIVs, ensuring that almost 8,000 additional Afghan allies and their families had a pathway to safety.

Similarly, the State Department has announced the establishment of a new P-2 category for refugees, in addition to the P-1 referrals, to expand available pathways for persecuted Afghans. As a result, we have welcomed more than 130,000 Afghans to safety.

The CARE program has been the linchpin of this work, serving as a valuable conduit for all of the different organizations I mentioned and Afghans themselves as they navigate a pathway to their new home. The work, however, is not codified in statute. It exists across a number of agencies and programs.

Congress should be unambiguous here. We support this work. We want to see the job continue, and we should do so by authorizing it as a new agency.

That is what this bill would do. It would authorize the CARE office in the State Department for 3 years and grant it important authorities to continue this work as an identified legislative priority for the State Department.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, to acknowledge the obligation that we have, our moral obligation to help those who helped us so much, and to fulfill our promise to all of those who stood with us.

I thank Ranking Member Meeks and Chairman McCaul of the Foreign Affairs Committee for their support in helping move this bill to the floor, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it.

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