House Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Meeks Delivers Remarks for Shadow Hearing on Trump’s Abandonment of Afghan Allies

Washington, D.C. — Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today delivered the following remarks, as prepared, during a shadow hearing titled: “Trump’s Betrayal of America’s Afghan Allies." 

The Democratic shadow hearing exposed the moral and strategic consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to close all remaining relocation pathways for Afghan allies into the United States and to suspend the adjudication of legal status for Afghans already here. 

“Thank you, Ranking Member Kamlager-Dove, for your leadership in convening this timely shadow hearing. I welcome our witnesses and thank them for taking the time to brief us on this critical issue. 

“I find it unconscionable that Democrats were forced to hold this hearing unofficially. Republicans should have held this as an official hearing, or at the very least accepted our invitation to join us and hear what these witnesses have to say. After all, Republicans held numerous hearings and events on Afghanistan in the last Congress, which regularly departed from honest fact-finding into pure political theater to blast then-President Biden. 

“Yet since then, as President Trump has abruptly ended all Afghan relocation efforts and upended bipartisan policy meant to help our Afghan allies who risked their lives to support our 20-year war, our Republican colleagues’ silence has been deafening. 

“And while I appreciate Assistant Secretary Kapur appearing earlier today, Afghanistan was only one of many topics in his remit, and we still have many unanswered questions. 

“We hope that we will have dedicated hearings on Afghanistan soon—Ranking Member Kamlager-Dove and I wrote to Chairman Mast and Subcommittee Chairman Huizenga last July urging them to act. They have so far failed to do so.  

“Until Donald Trump took office, supporting the relocation of our Afghan allies to safety had been a bipartisan goal. We worked across the aisle to advance Ranking Member Kamlager-Dove's reforms to strengthen the Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts—or CARE. But despite support from both sides of the committee, Republican leadership pulled it from last year's NDAA. It appears as though our Republican colleagues will abandon their convictions, and even their own bills, rather than risk going against Donald Trump. And the victims of their retreat include our Afghan allies—who are now stuck in limbo, separated from their families, or even being sent back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. 

“We have convened this shadow hearing to better understand the human impact of the Trump Administration’s policy changes on Afghanistan, and where to go from here. Changes that some may claim are just administrative—an exception for SIVs that wasn’t kept in the latest travel ban, a closure of a State Department office, or a federal register notice ending temporary protected status—have had massive impacts on the lives of thousands of people, including U.S. veterans and their loved ones. Congress has a responsibility to review these policies and develop appropriate legislative responses.  

“I’ve repeatedly said—during this and prior Administrations—that this topic should not be a matter of politics. We want this shadow hearing and these policies to be bipartisan. But we refuse to let this issue go away just because Republicans wish to avoid crossing Donald Trump. And we won’t abandon our values or our friends.  

“I still believe Republicans and Democrats alike want to do right by our Afghan allies, and there is an opportunity to reverse some of the disastrous decisions that have put their lives and livelihoods in jeopardy. I look forward to your testimony today to help us do so.”