s of the end of September, No One Left Behind was tracking over 200 SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) families (people who have visas and passports in hand) and over 2,000 SIV applicant families (people who are somewhere in the 14-step process) all hiding in Kabul. Many received communication from the State Department to shelter in place. How did we get here? How did we leave so many of our vetted interpreters behind?
The answer begins in 2008 when the State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) audited the Iraqi SIV Program. OIG highlighted key structural problems which still have not been fixed over 13 years later. The report identified the need for Department of Defense and State Department definitions of “foreign interpreters.” While the law detailing SIV conditions was made purposely ambiguous to give the executive branch maximum flexibility, it also meant that many individuals could apply for SIV status. Over the past 9 years, the Afghan SIV pipeline was flooded with applicants spanning the full breadth of affiliation with the United States – barbers, drivers, cooks, embassy works, combat interpreters, bankers who paid combat interpreters— anybody who had the slightest affiliation with the United States could apply to the program.
Think of the process like a traffic jam. Our interpreters and translators desperately needed a HOV lane. They did not get one. SIV applications were adjudicated on a first come, first serve basis. Even in 2021, the U.S. government still relies on a paper based (pdf based) vetting system because the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security have disparate IT systems that do not sync with each other.
So again, how did we get here? In January 2020, No One Left Behind took the initiative to submit recommendations to State OIG which was mandated by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to provide an assessment of the Afghan SIV program to Congress. OIG received our recommendations and invited us to meet with them in February. Two interpreters – an Iraqi (one of 2 who got a SIV in 2019 and who is now a U.S. Marine) and an Afghan – joined us.
In March 2020 we began working with Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff on a simple definition of “foreign interpreter” – a term which is already referenced in JP 3-16, JP 6-0, JP 4-02, JP 3-33, JP 4-10, JP 3-24, JP 3-07.3, JP 1-0, JP 3-06, but never actually defined.
OIG presented their report to Congress in June 2020. As appendix B of the report shows, the Secretary of State finally designated the Under Secretary of State for Management as the Senior Coordinating Official for the SIV program in March 2020. The report highlighted that only one person at State was working on the security vetting process for 18,000 applicants. It also mentioned that the Afghan SIV Unit, which falls under Consular Affairs, had told State OIG that it needed 50 more full time employees.
In July 2020, the State Department was successfully sued in a class action lawsuit brought before the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C. on behalf of SIV applicants whose applications were taking magnitudes longer than the Congressionally mandated 9 months. The government provided an adjudication plan to the ruling judge, yet no tangible progress was witnessed.
In September 2020, No One Left Behind published our internal research identifying over 300 Afghan interpreters and their family members that had been systematically targeted and killed because of their affiliation with the United States. This number is likely an underestimate and has been cited in House and Senate testimony. We met with the United States Institute of Peace Afghanistan Study Group and presented our findings.
In February 2021, President Biden announced EO 14013 which asked the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of Homeland Security for recommendations on streamlining the SIV program and expanding it to include other allies. The report was delivered to the President in early August.
A week before President Biden announced the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Brown University’s Costs of War Project published their findings and recommendations on how to fix the Special Immigrant Visa program. After the President’s announcement, No One Left Behind was invited to meet with the National Security Council (NSC) in early May. We provided 10 user case interviews with SIVs to the NSC and U.S. Digital Service so they could understand how the SIV process was seen from the applicants’ point of view, with one applicant noting his fear of the Taliban cutting off internet access. Also in May, CBS aired the comedy The United States of Al about an Afghan translator in the United States, which attracted an average of 5 million viewers through its first 13 episodes and was picked up for a full second season.
In June 2021, Secretary Blinken appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and noted that he had added 50 more full time employees to the Afghan SIV Unit. Congress then passed several pieces of legislation to streamline the program and the President signed it into law. All of this however, came too late.
On August 15th, our worst nightmare came true. Despite over 8 years of effort through 3 administrations, 7 Congresses, 7 Secretaries of Defense, and 5 Secretaries of State, a hit network TV show, unprecedented bipartisan Congressional support, and over 200,000 Change.org petition signatures, the bureaucratic, technological, interagency process, and leadership problems with the SIV application process remained in place. The United States failed to honor its promise to our allies. We only have ourselves to blame.
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Reflecting on the SIV Program and How We Got Here
Photo via Pixabay.
November 15, 2021
Former No One Left Behind Chairman James Miervaldis reflects on the history of the Special Immigrant Visa, intended for Afghan and Iraqi citizens who supported U.S. operations in those countries, and the bad decisions that led to lengthy processing delays, which ultimately turned deadly.
A
s of the end of September, No One Left Behind was tracking over 200 SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) families (people who have visas and passports in hand) and over 2,000 SIV applicant families (people who are somewhere in the 14-step process) all hiding in Kabul. Many received communication from the State Department to shelter in place. How did we get here? How did we leave so many of our vetted interpreters behind?
The answer begins in 2008 when the State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) audited the Iraqi SIV Program. OIG highlighted key structural problems which still have not been fixed over 13 years later. The report identified the need for Department of Defense and State Department definitions of “foreign interpreters.” While the law detailing SIV conditions was made purposely ambiguous to give the executive branch maximum flexibility, it also meant that many individuals could apply for SIV status. Over the past 9 years, the Afghan SIV pipeline was flooded with applicants spanning the full breadth of affiliation with the United States – barbers, drivers, cooks, embassy works, combat interpreters, bankers who paid combat interpreters— anybody who had the slightest affiliation with the United States could apply to the program.
Think of the process like a traffic jam. Our interpreters and translators desperately needed a HOV lane. They did not get one. SIV applications were adjudicated on a first come, first serve basis. Even in 2021, the U.S. government still relies on a paper based (pdf based) vetting system because the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security have disparate IT systems that do not sync with each other.
So again, how did we get here? In January 2020, No One Left Behind took the initiative to submit recommendations to State OIG which was mandated by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to provide an assessment of the Afghan SIV program to Congress. OIG received our recommendations and invited us to meet with them in February. Two interpreters – an Iraqi (one of 2 who got a SIV in 2019 and who is now a U.S. Marine) and an Afghan – joined us.
In March 2020 we began working with Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff on a simple definition of “foreign interpreter” – a term which is already referenced in JP 3-16, JP 6-0, JP 4-02, JP 3-33, JP 4-10, JP 3-24, JP 3-07.3, JP 1-0, JP 3-06, but never actually defined.
OIG presented their report to Congress in June 2020. As appendix B of the report shows, the Secretary of State finally designated the Under Secretary of State for Management as the Senior Coordinating Official for the SIV program in March 2020. The report highlighted that only one person at State was working on the security vetting process for 18,000 applicants. It also mentioned that the Afghan SIV Unit, which falls under Consular Affairs, had told State OIG that it needed 50 more full time employees.
In July 2020, the State Department was successfully sued in a class action lawsuit brought before the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C. on behalf of SIV applicants whose applications were taking magnitudes longer than the Congressionally mandated 9 months. The government provided an adjudication plan to the ruling judge, yet no tangible progress was witnessed.
In September 2020, No One Left Behind published our internal research identifying over 300 Afghan interpreters and their family members that had been systematically targeted and killed because of their affiliation with the United States. This number is likely an underestimate and has been cited in House and Senate testimony. We met with the United States Institute of Peace Afghanistan Study Group and presented our findings.
In February 2021, President Biden announced EO 14013 which asked the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of Homeland Security for recommendations on streamlining the SIV program and expanding it to include other allies. The report was delivered to the President in early August.
A week before President Biden announced the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Brown University’s Costs of War Project published their findings and recommendations on how to fix the Special Immigrant Visa program. After the President’s announcement, No One Left Behind was invited to meet with the National Security Council (NSC) in early May. We provided 10 user case interviews with SIVs to the NSC and U.S. Digital Service so they could understand how the SIV process was seen from the applicants’ point of view, with one applicant noting his fear of the Taliban cutting off internet access. Also in May, CBS aired the comedy The United States of Al about an Afghan translator in the United States, which attracted an average of 5 million viewers through its first 13 episodes and was picked up for a full second season.
In June 2021, Secretary Blinken appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and noted that he had added 50 more full time employees to the Afghan SIV Unit. Congress then passed several pieces of legislation to streamline the program and the President signed it into law. All of this however, came too late.
On August 15th, our worst nightmare came true. Despite over 8 years of effort through 3 administrations, 7 Congresses, 7 Secretaries of Defense, and 5 Secretaries of State, a hit network TV show, unprecedented bipartisan Congressional support, and over 200,000 Change.org petition signatures, the bureaucratic, technological, interagency process, and leadership problems with the SIV application process remained in place. The United States failed to honor its promise to our allies. We only have ourselves to blame.
