During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) spoke about the Trump Administration proposed travel ban which would include the families of US collaborators still inside Afghanistan.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, it's been three and a half years since August 30th, 2021 when the last American
00:17forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was, by any objective measure, a total fiasco.
00:26However, the Biden administration does deserve some credit for evacuating at least 120,000 Afghans
00:35in those chaotic days after the Taliban overran Kabul. It was one of the largest, if not the
00:42largest, humanitarian airlifts in history. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of Afghans
00:50and their families remained stranded in Afghanistan and other countries, especially Pakistan.
00:59Mr. President, many of these people had worked for our government or participated in programs
01:06funded by the United States in women's rights, in education, judicial and economic reform,
01:13in counter-narcotics, and many other areas. These refugees, they worked with and for our
01:23government, our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. Now, some of these
01:32refugees have made it safely to the United States, thanks to the determined persistence
01:38of humanitarian organizations, including one in Vermont, the Vermont Afghan Alliance,
01:47in the outstanding work of Molly Gray and her staff. These organizations have advocated for
01:54refugees ceaselessly. They have not forgotten what those refugees did for our soldiers in Afghanistan.
02:02And these organizations have helped arrange for the practical needs that refugees face, housing,
02:09employment, and other social services upon their arrival in the United States.
02:16I so appreciate the work of the Vermont Afghan Alliance and the many other refugee assistance
02:22organizations around the country, including in your state, Mr. President. They have been
02:28indispensable in helping us meet our obligation to support the Afghans who helped our soldiers.
02:38That's our obligation. But ultimately, resettlement is the responsibility of the federal government.
02:47And the Biden administration did fall short in its promises to the Afghan refugee population.
02:53This population of refugees exists, I state again, because of their work with and for our government,
03:02for our soldiers, for our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. We have abandoned our partners in their time of need.
03:14One of the things, the screening process for these refugees became hopelessly bureaucratic, opaque,
03:23and fraught with inexplicable delays, including the processing of long-delayed special immigrant visas
03:31for Afghans who supported the U.S. mission. Many of them were interpreters.
03:37And Congress failed by not providing the necessary funds and authority to streamline the resettlement process.
03:44And then, regrettably, in one of President Trump's first executive orders, signed on January 20th,
03:53he made the situation exponentially worse by suspending admission to the United States of Afghan refugees.
04:02And now Pakistan has threatened to deport them back to Afghanistan, where many of them would face the risk of arrest and, literally, execution.
04:14So thousands, today, of Afghan refugees are facing total abandonment by the U.S. government.
04:23And this is despite the fact that they've completed, or they've nearly completed, the laborious and time-consuming process of obtaining the necessary security and medical clearances for themselves and their families.
04:39And I'd like to share one example.
04:41For over a year, my office has tried to help an Afghan man, now in Vermont,
04:47who had worked at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
04:50This man is working to support fellow Afghans in finding employment for Afghans in Vermont.
04:59This man's father served as a deputy minister of justice, supporting U.S. rule of law projects.
05:06Since 2021, the father and his family have been hiding in a third country, knowing they would face arrest and persecution if they're deported back to Afghanistan.
05:21Then in December 2024, after years of waiting, they were finally cleared to fly to the United States.
05:29They thought their father, he thought his father was coming home.
05:32The son had already signed the lease for an apartment and was paying the rent for this to happen.
05:40But since January 20th, as a result of the president's order, the father and his family have remained in hiding,
05:47preparing for the worst as the son is continuing to pay rent on an apartment that was to be available for his father.
05:55You know, this is really shameful.
05:57These are folks who were there for us and our soldiers and our diplomats and our intelligence officers.
06:04And the situation for this family is typical of the situation for so many Afghan families who served us.
06:12You know, Mr. President, I have long believed that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was a terrible mistake.
06:21Tracking down Osama bin Laden and the other members of Al-Qaeda responsible for the September 11th terrorist attacks was justifiable and was necessary.
06:34But spending literally hundreds of billion dollars to try to transform a country of warring clans led by corrupt and ruthless warlords with no history of democracy was doomed to fail.
06:47Yet we did do that, and millions of Afghans believed in us, and they shared our vision for that country.
06:58And many of them served us, acting as interpreters for the U.S. military or faithfully serving our intelligence agencies.
07:08And these men, some of whom, and it was men, some of whom now live in Vermont, risked their lives for us,
07:16something that our soldiers take very seriously and have expressed immense gratitude for.
07:23Thousands were rushed to the airport in the first frantic days of the evacuation.
07:31When they got there, and some who got out, they were told to leave their wives and their children behind,
07:40and that their families would join them in the U.S. within one year.
07:44However, this is an obligation we had to those folks who, as a result of the collapse in Kabul, were in serious physical jeopardy.
07:58Yet now it's three and a half years later, and I am not aware of a single evacuation or reunification of family members of these men.
08:08They're here or elsewhere, and their families are still in Afghanistan.
08:15Mr. President, these refugees, as I stated, and will state again, because it's the heart of the matter, in the heart of the obligation,
08:22they worked with our government, they worked with our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers.
08:29And we have abandoned our partners when they need us.
08:36Some are still waiting on the SIV processing, others on their green cards, and most on the broken promise of reunification.
08:45This is really shameful.
08:47These men continue to stand with the U.S., working in our communities, paying taxes and growing our economy.
08:55We owe it to them, the Vaskans who made it here, and to our honor to bring their families to join them.
09:06Yet, Mr. President, there are alarming reports that President Trump plans to ban admission to the United States for citizens of 11 countries, including Afghanistan.
09:19And here's the part that's so terrifying, with no exception for Afghans and their families who qualify for the special immigrant visas or are awaiting evacuation.
09:35That's really unconscionable.
09:37Although the Taliban leadership issued a so-called general amnesty for former officials in the U.S.-backed government more than three years ago,
09:48the reality is that the U.N. has reported what we knew would happen, at least 200 killings,
09:54of former Afghan officials and members of the Afghan army who were trained and equipped by the United States.
10:00The Taliban, of course, has also reneged on its pledge to uphold the rights of women, including allowing girls to attend school.
10:11Today, the situation that faces Afghan women and girls is literally no better, regrettably, than under the Taliban before the United States occupation.
10:22Mr. President, the Trump administration's termination of USAID's assistance programs in more than 100 countries, including Afghanistan,
10:35without any meaningful review, has caused people everywhere to doubt that they can rely on the United States.
10:43We're putting our reputation in jeopardy.
10:47And President Trump and Secretary Rubio provided literally no credible explanation or justification
10:55in clear violation of Congress's intent with the destruction of these USAID programs.
11:03But by abandoning thousands of Afghans who do face persecution if forced to return,
11:12we reinforce those doubts.
11:14And by doing so, we encourage those who have long seen the United States as a world leader and as a partner
11:21to look for more reliable partners elsewhere, bad for our national security.
11:30President Trump's January 20th executive order triggered a 90-day review of our refugee admissions programs.
11:38And in February, a federal court did issue a nationwide preliminary injunction prohibiting the implementation of the order.
11:50But despite that, despite that court order, the Trump administration issued termination orders
11:58to refugee resettlement agencies in states around this country.
12:02And again, this is going to affect these folks who work for our government, our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers.
12:16We owe them.
12:18There's no justification for us to abandon them.
12:21You know, I'm really concerned, Mr. President, about the administration's, what I see is an increasingly brazen flaunting of court orders.
12:31And I think all of us in Congress should condemn any deviation from abiding by court orders by the administration.
12:41And I hope the administration's review of the refugee admissions is not another pretext review like we had, supposedly, of the USAID programs.
12:55It cannot be an excuse to manufacture a false justification for abandoning the victims of our nation building's debacle.
13:05We have to take ownership of what it is we did.
13:08We have to meet our commitments to people who helped us in our efforts in Afghanistan.
13:16So this must be an opportunity to expedite the resettlement to the United States of these Afghan refugees who trusted in us and whose lives are very much at risk.
13:33Mr. President, on a separate topic, I'd like to make a brief remark.
13:38Without objection.
13:41Thank you, Mr. President.
13:43It was a relief, I think, to all of us that the president announced that he was going to pause for 90 days these tariffs that have caused so much turmoil and havoc.
13:53It's only a pause.
13:56And it also continues tariffs with Canada and Mexico that continue to create enormous havoc for us in Vermont and I think for many states in the country.
14:09Thirty-four of our states have, as their major trading partner, the country of Canada.
14:16There's enormous back and forth in the car industry, as the president knows better than anyone, that these tariffs are very detrimental to.
14:27What we saw in Vermont in talking to our businesses, talking to our farmers, talking to folks who have utility bills at the end of every month and whose electricity comes from Canada, folks who in the northern part of the state get their gasoline from Canada, ship down to Vermont and gas stations or where they go to get it, and our home heating fuel.
14:53And the disruption and the threat to businesses and the erosion of trust that had been built up for decades, centuries, between Vermont neighbors and Canadian neighbors was unfathomable.
15:09So I'm relieved that the president has paused the tariffs, but I'm appalled at the manner in which the president and his economic advisors are proceeding without any coherent rhyme or reason or justification for these tariffs on Canada that hurt us so much.
15:32So I am going to urge that the administration back off on tariffs that serve no useful purpose, but absolutely, indirectly, and immediately are going to do so much harm to Vermont farmers, to Vermont manufacturers, to Vermont utility customers.
15:54And we are struggling in Vermont, folks who work really hard to pay their bills, and the idea that we, by executive action, would increase the cost of so many families and businesses is totally unjustified.
16:12And my hope is that all of us here whose constituents face the same repercussions of these reckless tariffs will speak out on their behalf so that folks and businesses can have some security that at the end of the month, they're not going to have a big spike in their expenses.
16:32Mr. President, I yield back.