Trump’s Broken Promise: No One Left Behind

Levi Clancy@leviclancy from Upsplash

Unless one is directly involved in the Afghan and Iraq wars — on the battlefield — then you have little chance of hearing about the special immigrant visa (SIV). Please let me take a moment of your time to enlighten you to a shameful saga in the war that began under the heading of the Bush Administration’s “Operation Enduring Freedom.” The irony will not escape you.

According to The Atlantic’s Priscilla Alvarez in July of 2018, “The [SIV] visa program was established in 2009 specifically for Afghan citizens, along with their spouses and unmarried children under 21, who work for the U.S. government in Afghanistan, and many of whom later face reprisals, even death, for their allegiance to America. A similar program was set up for Iraqi citizens in 2008.” So what’s the problem? Why is it that so many interpreters who saved American soldiers’ lives are left behind? One word: Trump.

Since taking office, paranoid that immigrants from the Middle East could wreak terror on the Homeland, Trump’s administration has put a choke hold on SIV visas from the battle grounds of Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2017 alone, according to research by Alvarez and confirmed by politicians on both sides of the aisle, not to mention the State Department, “In the past year, there’s been a sudden drop in arrivals under the special-immigrant-visa program for Afghan and Iraqi citizens, many of whom served alongside U.S. soldiers as battlefield translators.”

Many of the American soldiers have become so frustrated with seeing the local interpreters who stood with them on the battlefield and saved them from taking a bullet from the Taliban that they formed an organization to put pressure on the government agencies do what their organization’s name demands: Leave No One Behind.

It is a dubious battle. Many of the same interpreters who risked their lives and their family’s well being are waiting for more than ten years. These wars have lasted for 20 years and hundreds of thousands of American troops are alive because of the actions of those we promised we would protect.

“It would be impossible to say that these substantial drops are not a part of some policy. These are people who put themselves at risk because they served with U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Yes, it would have been ideal if the wars had produced peace and harmony in those two countries, but the Taliban is gaining strength and the death threats and murders are on the rise. These nations remain fragile and our support is vital. Afghanistan, specifically, is fraught with election troubles and the Taliban is closing in on all sides. The American “Truce” and “Peace Plan” signed on February 29th only means that the Taliban will have more power and will be free to hunt down those they deem to be American spies [more on that in another essay that will speak to the latest handshake agreement].

According to Alvarez in The Atlantic, “Two months into the Trump administration, then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directed American embassies around the world to double down on visas and ‘increase scrutiny of visa applicants for potential security and non-security ineligibilities.’ Since then, there’s been a stark decline in SIV arrivals. From January to June of 2017, 10,267 immigrants came to the U.S. on special immigrant visas. Over the same period in 2018, the number had fallen by more than half, to 4,166.’” Lately, the decrease has been reduced to a trickle.

NPR’s Morning Edition on May1, 2019, offered reporting by Quil Lawerance. He interviews Adam Bates, with the International Refugee Assistance Project. “It would be impossible to say that these substantial drops are not a part of some policy. These are people who put themselves at risk because they served with U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

NPR’s reporting on February 28, 2020, told the story of a typical US interpreter who is an Afghan and was promised he would receive an SIV visa. He has waited 10 years. He has to stay on a small USA base for his safety and cannot see his family. When he sneaks out to see them, he worries for his safety but that he will be tracked down and his family slaughtered.

These Iraq and Afghan interpreters believed in American values, American promises. They believed our word was our bond. We told them that we never leave soldiers behind on the battlefield. These people, dressed in our fatigues, speaking for our troops, and hoping against hope that the USA could save their nation, did not let America down.

We let them down. We left them behind. For shame.