Bill Text: CA AR76 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Relative to the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 3-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2021-09-03 - Introduced. [AR76 Detail]
Download: California-2021-AR76-Introduced.html
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION
House Resolution
No. 76
| Introduced by Assembly Member Mathis (Coauthors: Assembly Members Choi and Voepel) |
September 03, 2021 |
Relative to the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
HR 76, as introduced, Mathis.
Digest Key
Bill Text
WHEREAS, The American evacuation efforts employed in Kabul, Afghanistan after the Taliban regained control of the city on August 15, 2021, have been reported by many news sources as chaotic; and
WHEREAS, On August 26, 2021, an attack on the evacuation operations left 13 American servicemembers and nearly 200 Afghans dead. The Islamic State in Khorasan, also known as ISIS-K, took responsibility for the attack; and
WHEREAS, On August 30, 2021, the federal government was unsure about the total number of Americans left behind, and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken estimated, “We believe there are still a small number of Americans, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave;” and
WHEREAS, This crisis strikes close to home, as of September 1, 2021, at least 24 students who attend school in Sacramento’s San Juan school district, and at least one family from El Cajon, California, are still stranded in Afghanistan as the system for extraction broke down over the last few days of August; and
WHEREAS, Cajon Valley Superintendent David Miyashiro told news outlets that it is a “conservative estimate” to say that over 1,000 children that are United States citizens or children of Special Immigrant Visa holders are stranded in Afghanistan; and
WHEREAS, On August 30, 2021, General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr. noted that no American citizens made it out on the last five flights out of Kabul; and
WHEREAS, Over the course of the war, hundreds of thousands of Afghans put their safety at risk to help our servicemembers, working as interpreters, drivers, and informants, putting themselves and their families at risk of retribution from the Taliban; and
WHEREAS, After America’s military withdrawal on August 31, 2021, tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted the Armed Forces of the United States throughout the war remain within Afghanistan’s borders, including an Afghan interpreter named Mohammed who helped rescue then-Senator Joseph R. Biden when he and two other Senators were stranded in a remote Afghanistan valley after their helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm; and
WHEREAS, On August 16, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden stated, relating to the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, “The buck stops with me”; and
WHEREAS, The federal government failed to sufficiently plan to protect Americans and our allies; and
WHEREAS, Beginning on September 1, 2021, the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a Norwegian intelligence group, reported the Taliban have begun rounding up Afghans on a blacklist of people with suspected links to the previous Afghan administration. Reports also state that within hours of the United States’ withdrawal, Taliban fighters began raiding the homes of interpreters left behind in Kabul; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, That the Assembly reaffirms there is no acceptable number of Americans left behind in a hostile country, and our government should do all in its power to protect American lives and the lives of those who worked alongside our servicemembers and who remain in Afghanistan; and be it further
Resolved, That the Assembly continues to pray for the safe return of our California students and their families; and be it further
Resolved, That the Assembly expresses the necessity to ensure all Americans and our allies who remain in Afghanistan are able to safely and swiftly leave the country; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.
