foreign affairs Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Capito Calls For Border Security, Clarifies Senate Votes

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., delivered a speech in Martinsburg calling for increased security at the U.S.-Mexico border and clarifying her recent votes on the Senate floor.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., renewed calls for border security Thursday during a speech in Martinsburg.

At a meeting of the Rotary Club of Martinsburg, Capito addressed her vote against a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate that would have added border security jobs and raised standards for asylum claims in the U.S.

These plans – coupled with foreign aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan – were developed in a bill from a group of bipartisan lawmakers over several months.

But a bloc of Republicans voted against the bill, killing it on the Senate floor.

Capito said that immigration reform remains a central concern for her, but that she could not support the bill’s final draft.

According to Capito, lawmakers developed the bill in good faith. But she said “it was not a package that I thought would solve the problem, quite simply.”

Still, Capito said she has pushed fellow lawmakers to consider border security in later discussions.

“The number one problem that I hear about in this state, hands down, is the illegal immigration coming from the southern border,” she said.

When a new bill appeared on the Senate floor that allocated foreign aid without provisions for the U.S.-Mexico border, Capito said she was not fully satisfied.

“I kept saying we need amendments, we need to have border security, we need to have border security, and the end that got stripped out,” she said. “And the only option was to vote for foreign assistance.”

Ultimately, Capito voted in favor of the bill, which passed the Senate and requires a vote from the U.S. House of Delegates to become law.

Capito said she felt border security resources would have strengthened the bill. But she still saw value in supporting U.S. allies abroad and voted alongside 21 other Republicans.

Bolstering security in foreign countries would reduce the need for U.S. military intervention abroad in the future, she said.

During her speech, Capito also criticized President Joe Biden for what she sees as a lack of action on immigration and border security.

While the Biden administration played a part in negotiations for the bipartisan bill that failed in the Senate, Capito said the president still has not used enough of his authority to address immigration issues.

“There are things the president can do. You can turn people back to Mexico. You can do expedited removal. You can do asylum claims quicker,” she said. “This can all be done today, without any legislation.”

Two WVU Students Receive Federal Scholarship For Language Studies

Two West Virginia University students will travel abroad this summer as recipients of the competitive U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship.

Ariana Burks and Matthew Kinzer, both West Virginia natives, will spend two months learning Arabic and Japanese, respectively.

Burks, a junior double majoring in international studies and geography with a minor in Arabic, will travel to Nizwa in Oman for her studies.

Kinzer, who graduated in May with degrees in finance and economics, will study in Okayama, Japan.

The Critical Language Scholarship program seeks to expand the number of Americans studying languages that are essential for the United States’ engagement with the world.

Burks and Kinzer were two of the 500 recipients this year out of a pool of more than 5,000 applicants from across the country.

Recipients serve as ambassadors representing the diversity of the United States and build lasting relationships with people in their host countries. They are also expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and to apply their skills in their future careers.

For One Man And His Family, West Virginia Is A New Life

It’s difficult to imagine a society where everywhere you go, you have to fear for your life, simply because of what you believe in. But for one man, it was his reality until he received asylum in the United States. He lives in Morgantown, and you can hear his story on West Virginia Morning.

His name is Teewende Sandwidi. He speaks seven languages, including four African tribal dialects, along with French, English and German. He’s from Burkina Faso, a western landlocked country in Africa just north of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. More than 15 million people live there.

While Teeweende says Burkina Faso is a relatively safe country, it’s an underdeveloped place, where those in power have a large amount of wealth, and the poor are living in deplorable conditions. The president has been in power since 1987, and Teeweende says he rules by force. Restrictions on speech have been severe in Burkina Faso, as journalists and others who speak out against the government are killed. Teewende says his own criticism of government got him into very hot water, not just with officials, but even with his own parents, who gave him the nickname of “Trouble.”

“One issue was the case of female genital mutilations. There are laws that forbid but people keep practicing it, so talking about it was another issue,” he said.

“But when you have experienced it, when you have seen your sisters and even your own spouse go through trauma, from going through these female genital mutilations, it appeals you to at least protect the others that are being born, our daughters and our young girls so they can have a better life.”

When Teewende talks about his home country, he gets very emotional. He was the editor-in-chief of a newspaper that allowed students to get experience as journalists. He says he saw corruption first hand, and when his students wrote about it, things got more and more dangerous. He recalls one instance when someone in the streets threatened his, telling Teewende that his life wasn’t worth that of a chicken.

“I was targeting where money laundering was happening in the city, where you have for example kids not being able to go to school while the managers are building castles,” he said.

“Were you to go to the hospital, you have to pay extra fees to nurses, which are already paid by the government, but they started a fee which goes into their pockets.”

Teewende has been in Morgantown for three years. You can hear more of his story by listening to the audio link above.