President’s $33 Billion Ukraine Aid Package Would… Put Afghan Parolees on a Fast-Track to Green Cards?
Americans overwhelmingly support providing the people and the government of Ukraine the resources necessary to defend their country against Russia’s brutal military invasion. But for radical ideologues in the Biden administration, an effort to assist Ukraine in its existential battle with Russia, the president’s requested $33 billion relief package has been turned into another opportunity to blow holes in our already crippled immigration system.
When the Biden administration bugged-out of Afghanistan last summer, they left behind U.S. citizens and countless Afghan nationals who had been approved for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) by virtue of having aided our military efforts in that country over the past 20 years. Instead, in the chaos that ensued after the Taliban takeover, some 76,000 Afghans were airlifted to the U.S. For the most part, these were just random people who managed to bull rush their way onto the tarmac of Kabul’s airport. These largely unvetted evacuees were admitted to the U.S. by means of President Biden’s expansive use of parole – a power that is supposed to be exercised on a case-by-case basis and to advance some compelling public interest.
Now the administration is claiming even greater discretionary authority to fast-track Afghan parolees on the path to green cards. President Biden’s $33 billion aid request to Ukrainians who are valiantly defending their homeland from Russian aggression includes provisions that would move Afghan parolees to the head of the green card line. What does a Ukraine relief package have to do with additional immigration benefits for Afghans? Nothing, of course. But when has that ever prevented this administration from using any legislation as a pretext for granting blanket immigration benefits?
Buried deep in the White House’s is request is a provision that gives the Secretary of Homeland Security broad discretionary authority to “adjust the status of an Afghan national…whose parole has not been terminated, to that of an individual lawfully admitted for permanent residence.” But wait, there’s more. The same benefits would be extended to spouses and children of parolees who enter the country at any time in the future.
Support for the Ukrainian resistance is one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in Washington these days, which is what makes the administration’s attempt to add unrelated immigration benefits for Afghans so cynical. One more reminder that, under the current administration, any bill can and will be used to advance their unchecked immigration agenda.