Sec. 1220. Sense of congress
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/bill/113/hr/1960/eh/section-1220·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Expressing the Sense of the House or Representatives that the Special Immigration Visa programs authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 and the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 are critical to the United States national security, and that these programs must be reformed and extended in order to meet the Congressional intent with which they were created. Congress finds the following: Congress created the Special Immigration Visa program for the purposes of protecting and aiding the many brave Iraqis and Afghans whose lives, and the lives of their families, were endangered as a result of their faithful and valuable service to the United States during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
The Iraq Special Immigrant Visa program is set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2013. The Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa program is set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2014. Despite the pending expiration of the Special Immigrant Visa programs, many brave Iraqis, Afghans, and their families, continue to face ongoing and serious threats as a result of their employment by or on behalf of the United States Government. Between FY08–FY12, only 22 percent of the available Iraqi SIVs (5,500 visas out of 25,000 visas) have been issued and 12 percent of the available Afghan SIVs (1,051 visas out of 8,500 visas) have been issued.
As the Washington Post reported in October 2012, over 5,000 documentarily complete Afghan SIV applications remained in a backlog. The implementation of the Special Immigration Visa programs has been protracted and inefficient. The application and approval process for the Special Immigration Visa program is unnecessarily opaque and difficult to navigate. Applicants in both Iraq and Afghanistan often have effusive recommendations from numerous military personnel, have served the United States war efforts for many years, and have served valiantly, in some instances literally taking a bullet for a United States service member, and yet are denied approval for a Special Immigration Visa with little to no transparency.
Overly narrow provisions contained in the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 leave many deserving Afghans and their families in need of United States assistance, but unable to access the Special Immigration Visa program. The United States has a responsibility to follow through on its promise to protect those Iraqis and Afghans who have risked their lives to aid our troops and protect America’s security. The extension and reform of the Iraq and Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa programs is a matter of national security.
The extension and reform of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program is essential to the United States mission in Afghanistan. It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Iraq and Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa programs should be— reformed by— ensuring applications are processed in a timely, and transparent fashion; providing parity between the two Special Immigrant Visa programs so that Afghan principal applicants, like Iraqi principal applicants, are able to include their spouse, children, siblings, and parents; and expanding eligibility for the Special Immigrant Visa programs to Afghan or Iraqi men and women employed by, or on behalf of, a media or nongovernmental organization headquartered in the United States, or an organization or entity closely associated with the United States mission in Iraq or Afghanistan that has received United States Government funding through an official and documented contract, award, grant, or cooperative agreement; and extended in— Iraq through the year 2018, without authorizing any additional Special Immigrant Visas as authorized in the original statue; and Afghanistan through the year 2018, without authorizing any additional Special Immigrant Visas as authorized in the original statue.