U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) marked the second anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on Tuesday, by reintroducing legislation that would allow Afghan refugees to apply for permanent residency.
More than 70,000 Afghans were admitted to the U.S. on temporary humanitarian parole status following the fall of Kabul.
The bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act would allow Afghan refugees to apply for permanent residency and have certainty as they build their lives in the United States, Blumenthal said, joined by the leaders of local refugee resettlement groups at Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) in New Haven.
A number of his Senate colleagues had earlier blocked the bill. But that opposition can be overcome.
“We have right now, I guarantee, overwhelming bipartisan support for this bill and we simply need to push it as quickly as possible so that we can get a vote,” Blumenthal said.
“The parole status right now offers them no real security. And the Afghan Adjustment Act which I have championed would in fact give them a path to permanent legal residency," he said. “Not citizenship but permanent legal residency, so they would not be facing the fear every day that they could be sent back to Afghanistan where almost certainly they would be killed.”
Currently Afghan refugees can only gain permanent residency through the asylum system or a special immigrant visa process. That process is severely backlogged.
