The Kabul Tribune (KT)— A California congressman plans to use a rarely successful legislative procedure to force a House vote on restoring temporary deportation protections for Afghan immigrants, as more than 8,000 people nationwide face the risk of deportation following the Trump administration’s termination of the program.
Rep. Sam Liccardo, a first-term Democrat representing
Silicon Valley, told the Bay Area News Group that he plans to file a discharge
petition when Congress returns from recess on Nov. 9. His bill, the Afghanistan
TPS Act of 2026, would restore temporary protected status for eligible Afghans
while their immigration cases proceed.
The legislation, introduced this summer with Reps. Jason
Crow, a Colorado Democrat; Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican; and Maria Salazar,
a Florida Republican, has made little progress.
A discharge petition allows House members to bypass
leadership and bring legislation to the floor for a vote. The petition needs at
least 218 signatures to succeed.
The procedure has traditionally been difficult to use, but
it has gained prominence as House Speaker Mike Johnson faces a narrow
Republican majority ahead of the midterm elections.
Donna Crane, a lecturer in San Jose State University’s
Department of Political Science, said Republicans facing difficult reelection
contests have used discharge petitions this year to distance themselves from
President Donald Trump. The procedure can also give members of the minority
party a rare opportunity to advance legislation without the support of House
leadership.
“The majority controls the entire schedule,” Crane said,
adding that a petition can move a bill forward if its supporters remain united
and win backing from members of the opposing party.
Last year, Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Rep.
Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, used a discharge petition to bypass House
leadership and push for the release of investigative records related to Jeffrey
Epstein, the late convicted sex offender.
Liccardo’s bill seeks to restore temporary protected status,
or TPS, for eligible Afghan nationals. The program protects people from
deportation and allows them to remain in the United States temporarily when
conditions in their home countries make a safe return difficult because of
armed conflict or other extraordinary circumstances.
The Biden administration granted TPS to eligible Afghans in
2022, following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. The
Trump administration ended those protections in 2025 as part of a broader
effort to roll back the program for immigrants from 13 countries.
Liccardo said the United States had a responsibility to
Afghans who assisted American forces during the war.
“America promised thousands of Afghans who risked their
lives as interpreters, as informants, as other support roles to our military;
they risked their lives with the expectation that we would not betray them and
put them in harm’s way for doing so,” he said.
Joseph Azam, a Berkeley resident and board chair of the
Afghan-American Foundation, said the termination of TPS had shaken confidence
that protecting Afghans remained a bipartisan priority.
The policy change, alongside other Trump administration
restrictions on Afghans entering the United States, has caused concern in the
San Francisco Bay Area, particularly in Fremont, which is home to one of the
country’s largest Afghan immigrant communities.
Whether Liccardo can secure the 218 signatures needed to
force a vote remains uncertain. Without sufficient support, the bill could
remain stalled in Congress, leaving eligible Afghan immigrants without the
protections its sponsors are seeking to restore.
