Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., a former Army Ranger who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has blasted the Trump administration over reports that the government plans to send more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted the United States’ war effort to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The move, first reported by The New York Times, comes after President Donald Trump halted the U.S. resettlement program last year. The pause left about 1,100 Afghans at Camp As Sayliyah, a former U.S. military base outside Doha, Qatar, in limbo despite a majority of them already being approved for resettlement.
According to the Times:
Shawn VanDiver, the president of the aid group AfghanEvac, said he had been briefed on the Congo plan by State Department officials. He said that the Afghans would be given a choice between returning to live under the Taliban or being sent to Congo, which is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
On Wednesday, Crow reacted to the plan on MS NOW’s “Deadline: White House,” with host Nicolle Wallace calling it a “shameful betrayal” to the Afghans and their “brave service to aid the United States and the men and women of our military and our allies.”
“If this happens, it would be a moral travesty and a terrible failing, primarily for these Afghans who fought with us, who served with us, who worked with me and helped me do my mission and bring my soldiers home alive,” Crow said.
Crow told Wallace the U.S. made a commitment to help those who put themselves in grave danger by assisting the American war effort.
“We made a promise when we were in Afghanistan that if these folks worked with us and served as interpreters, served as guides, helped us secure our compounds, that if they needed it, we would be there by their side, we would have them and their families’ backs,” he said.
The former Army Ranger said assisting the Afghans was a “bipartisan issue” until the second Trump administration. “They have demonized this group, they demonize all immigrants, including Afghans, and they have made this a partisan issue when it should not be,” he said.
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While Crow said, behind the scenes, Republicans have voiced opposition to the administration’s treatment of Afghans, he urged his colleagues to take a stand publicly, saying, “Enough is enough.”
“I don’t need private conversations anymore,” he said. “I’ve been spending years having private conversations where I listen to them tell me how much they don’t like what Donald Trump is doing, how much they disagree with it, how horrible they think it is.”
“Our partners, our allies, are facing death if they go to the Congo or the Taliban,” Crow added. “These are people who fought with us, served with us. And if you can’t stand up and have their back, I simply don’t care anymore what you have to say, nor do you have any moral authority anymore when it comes to national security issues.”
“If people can’t trust us and won’t work with us anymore, our service members will be in tremendous risk, and we won’t be able to get our missions done,” he continued.
You can watch Crow’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”