bipartisan support. it seems, correct me if i m wrong, that the main reason is that republican senator chuck grassley of iowa blocked it over concerns about the vetting process. the white house has posed for it to be reintroduced. there have been efforts made to ensure him and improve the vetting process. are you going to be able to change grassley s mind and is he going to continue to be able to stand in the way of something i think would pass the senate with bipartisan support? as you know, the afghan adjustment act is separate from the visa program. sadly for many years senator grassley did everything he could to block our ability to get afghans here under the siv program. i think the afghan adjustment act, working with senator cotton and some other senators to try to address some of the concerns. i do think that bill will get
vladimir putin is to stand up to him and that is what the ukrainians are doing with tremendous courage and we should do everything we can to support them. i want to talk about another issue close to your heart and that is the situation with afghan special migrant visas. this is for afghans as you know who served with the u.s. military or the u.s. government there and now often face severe threats from the taliban. the bill is going to get a vote that you have to run to. this omnibus spending bill which has an extension of the siv program in there. how important is that to these people who served the u.s. and still remain in afghanistan today? i think it is critical. we made a promise to those afghans who stood by our men and women in the military and often saving their lives. that if they were threatened, we would try and help them get to the united states or someplace safe. we owe them that responsibility. and i ve heard from so many men
we can and we should and we must fix that. our officed issued a report talking about the siv program and what we need to do to make sure it works better for people under threat and we need to do things like reauthorize it permanently so people are not waiting on the last-minute agreement to ensure that they could continue to have their application reviewed. we need to provide resources to ensure those people waiting years to try and get out of the country and get to the united states in safety, that they have the ability to get here and are not killed by the taliban. yeah. and it is a real threat. many of them hiding in safe houses just to survive. so the reason you have to go soon is you have you guys are going to vote and get this $1.7 trillion spending bill passed. hooray. finally. it has a lot in there.
congress is racing the clock and they are racing the weather. they need all the senators to agree to finish this massive spending bill before they can go home before that storm hits and get home for christmas. the package would fund the government through next fall and includes a fix to the electoral count act, prompted by donald trump s attempt to overturn the election. more aid to ukraine and the expansion of the afghan siv program, but not the afghan adjustment act. explanation in a moment. many items the democrats wanted didn t make it. appropriation committee member democratic senator chris coons joins me now. i know you have been working hard on this, as have all of you. it s all in the details, as we say. the senator is on the foreign
u.s. made a commitment to get them out of the country and say they are fulfilling the commitment but actions show they re not because the hurdles are too great to get them out. these are individuals largely being able to come to the united states, not enough of them but under a thing called the special immigrant visa or siv program, an extension for more than another year of the siv program was going to be in the defense spending bill last week and then it was taken out. why was it taken out? what are lawmakers telling you? not a good answer. there is not enough political support for this. there is open opposition to it from some republicans and there s not it s not like your hear democrats talk about every day, either except with the exception of a few. i spoke to weaseth mo oolten an