Because the Taliban stood poised to take management of Afghanistan’s capital metropolis, Los Angeles lawyer Wogai Mohmand watched, horrified, racking her mind for easy methods to assist her household and others escape.
She typed up a doc outlining doable immigration pathways for Afghans in search of to return to america and posted it on social media. A whole bunch of strangers replied, begging her for authorized assist.
Now Mohmand is spearheading an effort to persuade the U.S. authorities to broaden a fast-track for authorized entry to america referred to as humanitarian parole to hundreds of Afghans, even because the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies is struggling to course of the purposes it has already obtained.
Mission ANAR — Afghan Community for Advocacy and Sources — co-led by Mohmand and two different Afghan American girls, attracts on previous fashions of comparable U.S. help to teams from Latin America and South Asia. To date, the group has helped some 9,000 Afghans apply for parole to enter the U.S.
Underneath humanitarian parole, which isn’t a pathway to citizenship, the federal authorities can minimize by means of the purple tape of the everyday visa course of to briefly permit folks to enter the U.S. for emergency or public curiosity causes. Parole is issued on a case-by-case foundation and sometimes reserved for dire circumstances, comparable to giving somebody a number of days to go to a dying liked one.
It has additionally been used repeatedly over the past 70 years to rapidly herald teams from international locations the place the U.S. has been concerned, together with folks fleeing the Cuban revolution, in addition to Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians following the top of the Vietnam Battle. As soon as right here, these people can request work permits and non permanent refugee money and medical help.
Not like up to now when such broader efforts had been initiated by the U.S. authorities, advocates aren’t ready for an official program this time. They hope that the big variety of purposes will persuade the Biden administration to ascertain a proper program to rapidly evacuate Afghans who haven’t been capable of go away the nation by means of the U.S.-led Operation Allies Welcome, which gives a fast-track primarily for Afghans who had been affiliated with the U.S.
However the group has run right into a wall. Since U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan Aug. 30, advocates say, none of their submitted purposes have been processed. In the meantime, an overwhelmed USCIS issued an agencywide request for volunteers to course of purposes from Afghanistan and has began coaching extra employees to help with the surge in requests.
“USCIS is actively assigning extra staffing sources to help with the present parole-application workload,” spokeswoman Victoria Palmer mentioned. “The company could have considerably extra employees assigned to this workload within the coming weeks.”
Practically 70,000 Afghans have been paroled into the U.S. as a part of Operation Allies Welcome. A further 20,000 Afghans have individually utilized for parole since August, Palmer mentioned. The company usually receives fewer than 2,000 requests per 12 months for folks from all nationalities.
Since July 1, USCIS has authorized simply 93 parole purposes for Afghans. Some are nonetheless of their house nation, whereas others have made it to 3rd international locations and are awaiting additional processing, Palmer mentioned.
Candidates should full in-person vetting and biometrics screenings earlier than they are often authorized for humanitarian parole. As a result of the embassy in Kabul is closed, candidates should journey to a 3rd nation to take action, Palmer mentioned. That’s assuming the Taliban lets them go away.
The company points eligible candidates a discover advising them of the journey requirement and, if cleared, the State Division offers the applicant a boarding letter indicating they’ve permission to enter the U.S. Then they’ll take a industrial flight, at their very own expense.
Congress created humanitarian parole below the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. It was first utilized in 1956 to let in additional than 20,000 Hungarians after the nation’s failed revolution. Just lately, its use has fallen into particular person circumstances and established applications such because the Central American Minors program, which began in 2014.
Mission ANAR founders see it as the one fast choice for a lot of who stay at risk below Taliban rule.
Most of the Mission ANAR candidates don’t qualify for Particular Immigrant Visas for Afghans or precedence designation below the Refugee Admissions Program as a result of they didn’t work for the U.S. As an alternative, they’re Afghan authorities staff, lecturers, journalists, widows and different girls and women. Some have U.S. citizen relations who may sponsor them for everlasting residency. Many may qualify for asylum.
“We’re in a definite second proper now,” Mohmand mentioned. “We simply don’t have years to spare. The aim actually is to get folks safely right here.”
Help for the group poured in by means of September, they usually’ve now raised greater than $350,000 to pay the $575 USCIS submitting payment for every utility. Funds are funneled by means of the San Francisco nonprofit Pangea Authorized Companies.
Mohmand believes the U.S. owes all Afghans, not simply those that labored straight with the federal authorities, a path to flee.
“The actions of the united statesgovernment and military created this subject. The U.S. legitimized the Taliban with the Doha peace settlement after which fairly actually handed them the federal government,” she mentioned, referring to a deal signed by the Trump administration and the Taliban final 12 months. “The U.S. has meddled all over the place, however I feel there’s a particular obligation owed to the folks of Afghanistan due to many years of occupation.”
The group’s method is dangerous. USCIS may maintain the cash and resolve to disclaim the purposes. However Mohmand hopes the technique — and funds — will as an alternative stress the federal authorities to behave.
Mission ANAR will not be the one group pushing for humanitarian parole for Afghans. In a letter the group despatched final month to President Biden, signed by different nonprofits and particular person regulation corporations, advocates mentioned they count on a complete of not less than 30,000 purposes to be submitted to the USCIS, garnering the company greater than $17 million in charges.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, who oversees immigration coverage on the Bipartisan Coverage Middle and who labored on the Division of Homeland Safety below the Obama administration, mentioned the Biden administration was lurching from disaster to disaster on immigration, some lengthy within the making, even earlier than the Afghanistan pullout.
Processing occasions at USCIS are a number of months lengthy, even for primary requests comparable to changing a inexperienced card. Lately, the company twice tried to boost charges however was halted by lawsuits.
Brown mentioned she understands the urgency behind humanitarian parole requests, however the company wants time and sources to construct capability.
“Proper now all the pieces is pressing. Do you prioritize the people who find themselves in Afghanistan, or the people who find themselves right here on navy bases, or the people who find themselves on bases abroad?” she mentioned. “Each time now we have a rare migration occasion — Cubans and Haitians, Central American unaccompanied minors, Afghans — we out of the blue have to drag sources from different locations and act like we’ve by no means skilled this earlier than. Why don’t we put together for migration emergencies similar to we do pure disasters?”
Mohmand labored with one other Afghan American lawyer colleague, Laila Ayub, primarily based in Virginia, to develop the preliminary immigration useful resource doc. Afterward, a former UC Berkeley peer, Saamia Haqiq, supplied her time. Haqiq had expertise working for immigration and resettlement organizations and had simply stop her job.
“All of it occurred so rapidly,” Mohmand mentioned. “And now it’s fairly actually Saamia and Laila’s full-time job, and I work on this half time by means of my job. It has modified our lives.”
Haqiq has since filed greater than 20 purposes on behalf of relations, together with a 25-year-old cousin who was a TV reporter at TOLO Information, one of many largest information shops within the nation, and an activist selling training for ladies.
“The work he did that he was so happy with doing he now regrets due to the chance it places on his household,” she mentioned. “The Taliban doesn’t deal with a single particular person — normally they aim a whole household.”
Nadia D., 49, of Fairfax, Va., helped 96 prolonged family members in Afghanistan apply for humanitarian parole by means of Mission ANAR. She requested The Occasions to not publish her final title out of worry of retribution for her relations.
Her household consists of former Afghan authorities staff, lecturers, engineers, nonprofit staff and journalists. None are capable of work, she mentioned, and the kids are now not at school. Taliban fighters knock on her nephew’s door nightly asking the place he’s, she added.
Nadia mentioned she’s glad that hundreds of Afghans who labored for the U.S. have been evacuated. However she hopes the federal authorities will do extra.
“Everybody has the precise to happiness and the precise to stay a protected life,” Nadia mentioned in Dari by means of an interpreter. “I’ll pray that my household can be capable of have that.”