Johnson quietly cut provisions about Afghan relocation from NDAA [View all]

Source: msn/Politico

12h


House Speaker Mike Johnson quietly stripped language from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have restored a State Department office tasked with relocating Afghan refugees in the wake of November’s National Guard shooting, a senior Senate Democrat and a separate person familiar with the changes said Tuesday.

The move, made over the weekend just before the public release of the marquee defense spending bill, reflects the intense political pressure Republicans are facing to clamp down on any programs that benefit Afghan refugees in the wake of the Nov. 26 shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members in Washington by an Afghan who’d been granted asylum in the U.S.

The person familiar with the legislative jockeying around the provisions to restore the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts said that language reestablishing the office was included in the draft compromise NDAA as recently as Friday. Then Johnson and Republican leadership axed it over the weekend. The person was granted anonymity to speak freely about the dynamics.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed the legislative reversal by Johnson in an interview Tuesday. “My understanding is that he did” remove the measure, Shaheen said.

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