Carper Pushes for Progress on Afghan Refugee Resettlement

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), senior member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) and the last Vietnam veteran serving in the Senate, today urged top intelligence and homeland security officials to learn from the mistakes of past withdrawals and create better opportunities for Afghan refugees resettling in the United States.

At the annual HSGAC “Threats to the Homeland” hearing, Carper also asked the panel — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray, and Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Christine Abizaid —  about the root causes of the rise in domestic terrorism and racially motivated attacks across our nation. 

“I remember full well our withdrawal from Vietnam. I remember watching on television as American helicopters rose from the ground in Saigon, and attached to them all over those helicopters were Vietnamese people trying to get out of that country. And as I watched our withdrawal . . . out of Afghanistan a month or so ago, I was reminded of what happened in Vietnam [in 1975],” Carper said. “I think the question for us now is what do we do now? . . . How do we handle the resettlement?”

Carper continued, “What do we need to be doing . . . to help make sure that the folks that are coming here have a new chance in their lives, have a chance to get settled? A lot of them want to work, we have a lot of employers that are looking for workers, and maybe at the end of the day that something good, hopefully, can come out of something very tragic … We need to work together to make sure that we learn from what’s happened in the past, we learn what’s happened in the last 20 some years, and go forward.”

To view Senator Carper’s full remarks and questioning, click HERE.

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