This is the second installment in a Washington Examiner series detailing the struggles of Afghan activists and allies affected by the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The State Department’s special immigrant visa promised safety to Afghans who worked alongside the U.S. military. But multiple thousands of SIV candidates likely remain stuck in Afghanistan. The Afghans who shared their stories below are navigating the early stages of the overloaded SIV program. They’re doing so from safe houses, motivated by valid fears of a gruesome death if the Taliban find them. For their safety, all have been given false names.
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When he applied for an SIV in 2014, Rahmatullah encountered a common problem: His U.S. supervisor would not respond to requests for a letter of recommendation. “This one letter decides the life of a human,” says Rahmatullah, whose case stagnates as he hides from the Taliban with his wife and 1-year-old son.
After spending 10 years installing telecommunication networks for the U.S. and Afghan military and police, Gul applied for an SIV in 2018. The State Department recently informed Gul that his application awaits approval from the chief of mission, explaining that “it may take longer than usual” as a “large number of SIV cases [are] pending review.”
The action comes too late for Gul’s father, who was killed in November 2021 when he refused to give Gul’s location to the Taliban. Gul’s fate remains unclear. A State Department official tells me, “Historically, about 40% of applicants do not pass the chief of mission approval stage” — just the first of multiple phases in the SIV process.
Ahmad, who worked for a U.S. construction company between 2009 and 2012, is among the “thousands” of applicants the State Department tells me have submitted SIV inquiries since Jul. 1, 2021. Unable to find remote employment, he already struggles to pay for his family’s basic expenses as he awaits initial processing.
Sardar has achieved approval from the chief of mission, and he also had travel documents that allowed him to evacuate from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 27. He says he felt unsafe passing through layers of Taliban security the day after a suicide blast at the airport killed hundreds.
Though he worked eight years with NATO and the World Bank, Sardar is now jobless. His wife and two children eat once or twice per day. Sardar is on a Task Force Argo evacuation list, but he balances his hopes that evacuation flights may soon resume by creating backup plans to escape to a third country if necessary.
Esmatullah, who spent six years working for the U.S. to transform the Afghan Air Force, first applied for an SIV in 2014 but was denied. He reapplied in 2019 and received approval from the chief of mission in April 2021.
Though he has documents prepared to leave the country, Esmatullah cannot find a way out of Afghanistan. Running out of cash, he has moved between several homes to stay one step ahead of the Taliban. Esmatullah says he does not “know … how many days will [he] be alive in this situation,” but he says that “if [the Taliban] catch [him], they will kill [him].”
Especially in the past year, onlookers warned of impending dangers for targeted U.S. allies based on the SIV program’s documented failures. If the Biden administration does not immediately increase support for SIV applicants, the loss of our allies’ lives and the impact on the veterans who served with them will be a stain on this nation for decades to come.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer in the Detroit area.
