Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we are signing a letter to our members of Congress calling on them to back legislation supporting the evacuation and resettlement of our Afghan Allies.

The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan is a humanitarian crisis that has left upwards of 550,000 Afghans internally displaced in the country since the beginning of the year, adding to the 2.9 million Afghans already internally displaced at the end of 2020. In the face of these challenges, we need to ensure that the United States lives up to its obligations to evacuate and provide refuge to our Afghan allies who supported the U.S. Armed Forces over the last 20 years.

The administration and Congress have taken some steps to assist with the evacuation. President Biden signed a bipartisan emergency supplemental budget bill that established more funding and added 8,000 visas for Afghan nationals eligible for the Special Immigrant Visa program, which allows certain individuals who served with U.S. forces and their families to immigrate to the United States. The U.S. State Department announced on August 2 a Priority 2 (P-2) designation that allows certain Afghan nationals and their family members who do not meet the requirements of the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program to arrive to the United States as refugees.

Nevertheless, significant challenges remain, and evacuating our allies requires additional measures to ensure no one is left behind. For instance, 18,000 Afghan allies and 53,000 family members remained in the SIV processing backlog earlier in 2021, largely due to issues around administrative roadblocks that delay issuing these visas and continue to place these individuals in harm’s way. While the P-2 designation is welcome, the scope of the problem requires the United States to designate these individuals as a P-1 priority so it can use the full resources of the U.S. Refugee Admissions program to bring them to safety.

To address these issues, we ask you to contact your representatives to ask them to press the Biden administration to implement the new reforms to the SIV program to process these visas as quickly as possible and designate Afghans facing danger in the country as P-1 priorities for refugee resettlement. Although the scope of this challenge is large, our members can contribute to the broad voices asking Congress and the administration to do well by our allies and bring them to the United States to honor their service.

Reminder: Please vote in the upcoming September 14 Recall Election. If you are a registered voter you should have received a Mail In Ballot. You can fill it in and mail it back now through September 14. It must be postmarked no later than September 14. You can also return it to a Vote by Mail Drop Box or a Voting Center when they open up 10 days before the election. If you are not registered to vote, you can do so on line now or at a Voting Center when they open September 4. Go on line at LAVote.net for all information regarding voting.