THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

It also involves immigration but not children this time. In our war without end in Shitholeistan we have enlisted many locals to help us as interpreters and other functions no longer a part of our military. As we have been unable to win out in our efforts after 17 years, many of those who helped us have sought to follow us to the uS for their own safety. Alhough there is a program to provide for their visas, it has and is a political football which makes their chance for survival difficult if not impossible.

Four years ago, Ahmad Shirin was in his native Afghanistan, fearing that the Taliban would kill him for serving as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, a job dutifully and dangerously carried out for 12 years.

Today, Shirin lives in Charlotte thanks to a special visa program for translators and interpreters who assisted U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That program is now in jeopardy.

Shirin said he fears that thousands who also aided American forces won’t be able to follow him to the U.S. because a special visa program for Afghans is in congressional limbo, partially entangled in the immigration debate raging in Washington.

“The people who supported the U.S. Army and U.S. government, their lives are in danger, serious danger,” said Shirin, who works part-time as an Uber driver in Charlotte. “These people made a lot of sacrifices to help the United States.”

The Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program, which allows Afghans who supported the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan and face threats because of their work to apply for refuge in the United States, needs to be renewed for Fiscal 2019, which begins October 1.

But the effort has become a victim of the broader debate over immigration.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told McClatchy last week that he didn’t have a problem with the 4,000 special visas sought by Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., but added “I just want some integrity provisions added” to the program.

When asked what those provisions might be, Grassley responded “you’ll have to define integrity.”

Tillis and Shaheen unsuccessfully tried to get an amendment for 4,000 special immigration visas, or SIVs, attached to a must-pass defense bill that the Senate passed Monday night, 85 to 10.

Tillis, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, still saw hope. He said lawmakers could add the visas and extend the program when Senate and House negotiators meet to write a final bill.

Failing that, “well look for other vehicles — we’ll find out whether or not the administration would have any leeway under any sort of other methods to allow people to immigrate here.”

“We send a very negative message to any people in country who are sympathetic with what we’re trying to do to help when we say ‘We want your help, but we won’t guarantee your safety,’” Tillis added. “These are folks who have done something extraordinary in support of our country in a very dangerous place.”

The Afghan program, part of the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 and patterned after a visa program created for Iraqis allies a year earlier, has enjoyed Republican and Democratic support in both chambers of Congress.

It is not too difficult to see that Chuck Grassley has integrity problems but it is indecent to hold that against people who ultimately gave up everything in their lives to help us. But the US is so exceptional it has no need for gratitude.