Fazlullah Safi was a captain in the Afghan National Army medical unit that treated soldiers until the government was overthrown by the Taliban in August 2021.
He said that his family continues to hide from the Taliban in Afghanistan due to their ties to the former Afghan army. The Taliban searched for him several times in the family home, bringing a photo of him in military uniform.
“I can’t go back to Afghanistan because of them [will] target me,” said Fazlullah Safi, 28, speaking at an iftar gathering hosted by the Afghan American Foundation and ICNA Relief at the end of Ramadan last month in Woodbridge, Virginia.
Fazlullah Safi is among more than 78,000 Afghan refugees who arrived in the U.S. in the days following the fall of Kabul through a humanitarian parole program called Operation Allies Welcome, created by the Biden administration for emergency evacuations.
The Department of Homeland Security’s humanitarian parole program allows refugees to stay in the country for about two years. Similar programs have previously been established for refugees from Vietnam, Cuba and Iraq. However, the program does not grant permanent residency status or provide a path to U.S. citizenship, and it ends this summer.
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they are starting a process starting in June that will allow Afghan nationals to claim compensation so they can legally live and work in the United States for another two years.
But this is only a temporary solution to avoid deportation. DHS encourages Afghan refugees to obtain permanent status through other channels, including asylum, which is a lengthy and expensive process.
Fazullah Safi’s cousin, Nazanin Omarzada Safi, 29, also on parole, said she has been waiting more than a year for her asylum case to be approved. He was a medic in the Afghan army and was injured during evacuation.
As a working woman in Afghanistan today, especially working for the Afghan military, she said it would be a death sentence for her to return to Afghanistan.
In addition to being able to stay in the U.S. legally, he said he can’t apply for certain benefits and jobs as a parolee. He said the permanent solution to situations like his is for Congress to pass the Afghanistan Adjustment Act, a bipartisan bill that would allow refugees to stay permanently.
Mustafa Babak is the executive director of the Afghanistan American Foundation, which advocated for the Afghanistan Adjustment Act. It was introduced by the last Congress, but was not included in a comprehensive bill until late last year, despite support from senior military officials.
“We’ve done a lot of advocacy around a permanent path for Afghans to make America home,” he said. “We believe that there are moral responsibilities for the United States that Afghans, in general, have actually struggled with to promote democracy, to establish peace and stability, and to develop the economy.”
Sen. Delaware Democrat Chris Coons, who co-sponsored the Afghanistan Adjustment Act bill last year, is in talks with possible additional co-sponsors to form a strong, bipartisan group to reintroduce the bill to Congress.
“I’ve heard dozens of stories in person, by phone, by email, of Afghans who have moved to the United States and who are here on humanitarian parole, which expires in two years this summer, are worried and concerned about the lack of it. a clear path to permanent residency,” Cons said.
If the bill doesn’t pass, he said, “the alternative is a badly broken shelter system swamped with overcrowding.”
As of February, fewer than 5,000 Afghans who were evacuated to the U.S. were able to obtain permanent residency.
Joseph Azam was born in Afghanistan and moved to the US in the early 1980s and serves on the board of the Afghanistan American Foundation.
Azam said that while parolees from Afghanistan have been able to get work permits and send their children to school, it’s all “simply contingent on their continued legal status … The public doesn’t understand that the clock is ticking.”
Azam said he was worried about falling off the radar of the Afghan public.
“The world is changing and the focus is changing,” he said. “And so it’s going to be harder and harder for people to keep this mindset, but we’re trying.”
Opponents of the Afghanistan Adjustment Act, who blocked the bill, say Afghan refugees should undergo more security checks.
But some say resistance to the passage of the Afghanistan Adjustment Act is part of a larger problem surrounding immigration.
“Any topic on immigration, whether it’s the border, Dreamers, Afghans, even high-skilled immigrants who can really contribute to our economy, Congress is really struggling to crack down on immigration,” said Julia Gellat, senior policy analyst. The Migration Policy Institute.
“Congress just has a hard time getting anything passed. “Every point of the legislation seems to be politicized and really difficult to pass,” he added.