Senate Shoots Down Attempt to Impose More Vetting and Curtail Benefits for Afghan Evacuees; THEN 49 Reps Help Dems Pass Billions in Welfare, Driver’s Licenses for 95K Afghans Brought to U.S., and related stories
Senate shoots down attempt to impose more vetting for Afghan evacuees:
Senators voted Thursday to give Afghan evacuees a speedier path to getting driver’s licenses, overcoming objections of Republicans who said they were being granted a shortcut around the usual security checks.
The vote came as part of a broader debate on government funding for the coming fiscal year, which pumps billions of dollars into assistance for Afghan evacuees and speeds their path toward asylum.
One of those moves is to waive requirements of the REAL ID law, put in place after the 2001 terrorist attacks to try to keep bad actors from getting identification documents.
Sen. Rob Portman said that shortcuts one of the vetting checks the Biden administration had promised. He and other Republicans backed an amendment that would have required Afghan evacuees to meet the same standards as anyone else applying for a REAL ID driver’s license or identification card.
“It simply requires Afghan parolees to follow the same processes other parolees must follow,” the Ohio Republican said.
But Democrats said the GOP was trying to throw roadblocks in the way of the Afghans. —>READ MORE HERE
U.S. Senate defeats bid to curtail benefits for Afghan refugees
The U.S. Senate narrowly defeated Republican-backed legislation on Thursday that would have curtailed assistance for thousands of Afghans evacuated last month as U.S. forces withdrew and the militant Islamist Taliban took over Afghanistan.
The measure failed on a 50-50 vote because it needed a simple majority to be included in a spending bill that must pass to keep the government open after midnight.
Senators voted along party lines, with Republicans backing the measure and Democrats opposing it, underscoring the deep divide over how the country should deal with a flood of Afghans desperate for new homes after the U.S. withdrawal from their homeland.
The measure, sponsored by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, would have cut off housing, medical, food and other aid for the resettled Afghans after March 31, 2023, and waived strict requirements for obtaining government identification that would have made it more difficult to obtain drivers’ licenses. —>READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to related stories:
US majority ‘not confident’ Afghan refugees properly vetted: poll
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