The former Afghan translator, whose wartime service helped Marines find and deactivate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) won him US resettlement and final citizenship, hoping the US would allow his brother into the country. for humanitarian reasons through a process known as release.
Hussein explained in a signed affidavit that his brother – and his wife and young children – were in great danger because of his own years of working with the US-backed Afghan government, as well as Hussein’s assistance to the US army in its fight against the Taliban.
But the evidence he provided, from Afghan government IDs and passports to news articles detailing the Taliban’s attacks on Khazars and US translators, was not enough. Hussain’s application on behalf of his brother was rejected by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on December 29, 2021.
“USCIS generally offers parole based on protection needs only when USCIS determines that the beneficiary is at risk of serious, targeted or personalized harm in the beneficiary’s country or is in danger of returning to a country where the beneficiary will be harmed,” she said. letter of rejection.
“USCIS has not found sufficient evidence of the nature cited above to demonstrate eligibility for parole,” the letter continued.
Zaker Hussain in an unexploited photo in Afghanistan. Zakir Hussein
Since the Taliban invaded Afghanistan last summer, the United States has evacuated 124,000 US citizens and residents. third-country nationals; and Afghans as part of the largest airlift since the Vietnam War. More than 70,000 Afghans who aided the US war effort or were believed to be at risk of being persecuted by the Taliban were subsequently resettled.
Due to the hasty and chaotic evacuations, however, not all Afghans who could be eligible for resettlement in the US were evacuated. Many of those left behind have begun applying for parole, which allows US officials to allow visa-free immigrants to enter for urgent humanitarian reasons.
As of July 2021, USCIS has received more than 46,000 applications from Afghans hoping to come to the United States through the parole process. However, most requests for release of Afghans remain unresolved – and more than 90% of the less than 5,000 fully-heard requests have been rejected, according to USCIS statistics released to CBS News.
As of June 2, only 297 Afghan release requests had been approved by USCIS, while 4,246 requests had been rejected, according to the agency, which suggests that most of the tens of thousands of pending cases will be rejected according to the standards used. . by the US Government.
For various reasons, those requesting release were not among those evacuated and resettled by US officials last year following the abrupt collapse of the Afghan government. In many cases, they were unable to enter Kabul airport in time before evacuation flights stopped.
Hussein’s wife, daughter and one of his brothers managed to board an evacuation flight and later reunited with him in Virginia in August 2021. But Mohammed’s other brother, sister-in-law and their children could not enter. at Kabul Airport. the chaos caused by thousands of desperate Afghans hoping to escape Taliban rule.
Mohammad, who requested that his last name be omitted to protect his identity, said he had been in hiding ever since. With the birth of his daughter last year, Mohammed has three children to care for – but was unable to work, fearing he could lead the Taliban to find out where he is.
When the United States rejected his request for parole, Mohammed said he felt “dead but breathing.” The affidavit contained in his application stated that the Taliban had access to his archives and his former office at the presidential palace, where Mohammad worked as a painter and architect in the President’s Office.
“We do not feel safe,” he said through an interpreter. “We do not know what will happen in an hour. We do not know what will happen tomorrow.”
Children play with a bicycle wheel as Afghan refugees struggle to survive in harsh conditions in Islamabad, Pakistan on May 29, 2022. Refugees living in the camp continue to stay in the country due to the economic and political problems in Afghanistan. Muhammed Semih Ugurlu / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Hussein, who now works for a refugee relocation team in Virginia, said he regularly sends money to his family in Afghanistan so they can buy basic necessities. But he said he felt deeply guilty and was constantly worried about their safety.
“They are endangered because I support the US government,” said Hussein, who arrived in the United States in 2014 as part of a Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans assisted by US forces.
Alexander Wu, a former U.S. Marine Corps captain who served with Hussein during his 2012 deployment in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, said his former translator should not worry if his family members are injured or be killed.
“Awful things are happening everywhere, but this is something that is uniquely a direct result of a US policy choice,” Wu said. “These are the people we served.”
“A frightening example of inequality”
Since the 1950s, the United States has used the principle of parole during many crises to quickly resettle refugee groups, including Hungarians fleeing Soviet repression, Cubans fleeing communism, and Vietnamese seeking safe haven. after the fall of Saigon. The Biden government has freely used conditional release, citing it to accept some asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, at-risk Central American children, Haitians and Cubans seeking to be reunited with their refugee families in the U.S., and Ukrainians. Afghans evacuated last year. However, the administration relied on tighter eligibility rules when adjudicating requests for release from Afghans who had not been evacuated from the United States last summer, prompting refugee supporters to file charges of ill-treatment and discrimination. Responding to the criticism, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) noted that parole was not intended to replace the U.S. refugee program, which officials said Afghans seeking asylum should use to try to reach US, however, those hoping to enter the years – The long US refugee pipeline must be in a third country. DHS said Afghans would be released on parole in “certain limited cases”, citing cases of immediate family members of U.S. citizens or residents, former Kabul embassy staff, Special Immigration Visas applicants, direct relatives of Afghans who migrated to the United States. and others experiencing “serious, targeted harm.” One of the reasons most release cases in Afghanistan remain unjustified, DHS added, is because USCIS typically handles about 2,000 applications a year – not tens of thousands. DHS also noted that 70% of Afghans seeking conditional release are in Afghanistan, where they are unable to get the required interviews because there is no US consulate there. Applicants deemed eligible for parole must travel to third countries for their cases to be approved, DHS said. “This complicates the completion of certain humanitarian release requests that would otherwise have been approved,” the department told CBS News. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. The government, they said, should also allow individuals, such as veterans, to fund the resettlement of Afghans, including their wartime allies. “Only in my personal capacity do I know hundreds of people who would be willing to support the Afghans,” said Chris Purdy, an Iraq war veteran who now leads Veterans for American Ideals, a branch of the Human Rights Refugee Group. First. An Afghan family reunion years is made 02:46 Purdy acknowledged that the United States was under-equipped to handle tens of thousands of release cases last year. However, he said the government had almost a year since the fall of Kabul to set up a program to resettle Afghans at risk of being left behind, citing the rapid creation of a private-sponsored initiative for Ukrainian refugees. Two months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden government launched a program called Uniting for Ukraine to allow individuals to help war displaced people come to the United States. Unlike most U.S. immigration programs, which take months or years to process reports, Uniting for Ukraine cases are processed electronically in a matter of weeks or even days. In less than three months, 37,000 Ukrainians received U.S. travel permits and 11,000 arrived, according to USCIS. “Processing the claims of one group with a much lower probative threshold, and without cost, without doing it for the other is a terrifying example of inequality,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Agency. “This process aims to save lives and reunite families – the fate of an applicant should not depend on …
