{"id":66136,"date":"2021-04-06T16:33:27","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T16:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/04\/06\/they-risked-their-lives-to-help-us-how-biden-can-fix-the-terp-visa-program\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T13:06:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:06:27","slug":"they-risked-their-lives-to-help-us-how-biden-can-fix-the-terp-visa-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2021\/04\/06\/they-risked-their-lives-to-help-us-how-biden-can-fix-the-terp-visa-program\/","title":{"rendered":"They risked their lives to help us. How Biden can fix the troubled \u201cterp\u201d visa program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The U.S.\u2019s special immigrant visa program<\/a> for Afghan contractors<\/a> is broken, according to a report released Monday, but there are promising signs that the Biden administration may be open to fixing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A deep backlog of requests, combined with a lack of visibility on how many Afghan contractors<\/a> have worked for the U.S. government and what has happened to them, has plagued the program, researcher Noah Coburn wrote, in a paper published through Brown University\u2019s Watson Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany of these military interpreters and other civilian workers are no longer safe in their own homes, threatened by anti-government fighters and criminal groups,\u201d according to the report. \u201cYet the U.S. visa system designed to save them is slow and inefficient, with a current processing time of over two years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program, created in 2008, came as a response to concerns about the fate of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters and other local national contractors who worked with American troops and government officials, but it has fallen into disarray as the wars in those countries have stretched into two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, nearly 19,000 Afghans were waiting for SIV approval, more than the total number who have received the visa since the program began, according to the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt least hundreds of these Afghans have been killed already as a result of their alliance with the United States government and the lives of thousands of others are at risk,\u201d Coburn wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issues are three-fold, according to the report: It takes a dangerously long time to make it through the visa process; Once one does, they receive a small amount of money and are brought to the U.S., but there is no follow-up on how they settle in; and if the visa is rejected, there is no tracking of that Afghan national\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As many interpreters, fixers and others were hired on an ad-hoc basis, there is no central database with the identities of everyone who helped U.S. troops or officials on the ground in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\t