Afghanistan

# Asylum# Asylum Office# Asylum Seekers

Afghan Asylum Absurdity

I wrote last time about recent updates from the Asylum Division. Here, I want to focus on one element of those updates: How the Asylum Offices are dealing with asylum applications from Afghan evacuees.

Since Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August 2021, about 88,000 Afghans have been evacuated by the U.S. government and brought to our country. These are generally people who cooperated or worked with the United States or the prior Afghan government, plus their immediate family members. These Afghans would be at risk of harm or death in their country due to their affiliation with the United States or the prior government of Afghanistan.

Ideally, we would have brought these people here and given them permanent status, so they could feel stable and safe, and so they could start rebuilding their lives. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. A bill to regularize the status of Afghan evacuees–the Afghan Adjustment Act–has stalled in Congress, and so the evacuees are left in limbo, not knowing whether they can stay or whether they will have to leave. As a result, many evacuees have no other option but to seek asylum. This situation is absurd and insulting, and–adding injury to insult–the Asylum Offices are mishandling the Afghan’s applications.

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By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Office# Asylum Seekers

Asylum for Afghan Parolees (and How It Could Affect All Asylum Seekers)

Even before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, that country was suffering a humanitarian disaster. In 2020, about 2.5 million Afghans were living outside their country as refugees; another 3.5 million were displaced within Afghanistan. In August 2021, the Taliban occupied Kabul, which triggered one of the largest air evacuations in history–over 124,000 people were flown out of Hamid Karzai International Airport. 

Where all these people will go remains an open questions. As usual, Afghanistan’s neighbors are hosting the large majority of refugees, with more than 1.4 million in Pakistan and about 780,000 in Iran. Significant numbers of people are also in Europe and Turkey.

The United States is also accepting Afghans, and we are currently in the process of receiving about 50,000 people for permanent resettlement. Given our long involvement in Afghanistan, and that many Afghans relied on us and assisted our efforts, it seems only right that we protect those in need. The problem (or, more accurately, one problem) is that for most Afghan evacuees, there is no legal mechanism for them to remain permanently in the U.S., and so their legal status in our country is uncertain.

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By Jason Dzubow
# Asylees and Refugees# Asylum Seekers

Afghanistan Through My Clients’ Eyes

This week I attended an asylum interview for my Afghan client. He was a high-ranking government worker and a member of a secular political party. His daughters were educated and one of his sons was a diplomat. Because my client worked for the government and educated his daughters, he and his family became targets for the Taliban. They kidnapped and brutally murdered my client’s young son. They kidnapped a second son and held him for over two years, until he was finally freed during a military operation. That son has not been the same mentally or physically since his return. A third son was severely injured in a Taliban suicide bombing. In addition, a Taliban soldier beat up my client’s wife and repeatedly threatened my client and members of his family. During our practice session, my client’s wife sat nearby weeping as her husband recited their family’s story. As of this writing, my client has not been able to contact his adult daughters in Afghanistan, and he fears they could be subject to forced Taliban marriages or worse.

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan happened more quickly than anyone predicted, but perhaps this result was inevitable. Or perhaps not. As we hear from all the Monday-morning quarterbacks about what should have happened, I notice that the voices of one important group are largely missing–the Afghan people themselves. We heard little or nothing from them when we invaded Afghanistan in 2001, as we shifted strategies and generals over the intervening years and decades, and during the draw-down that has been on-going for I-don’t-know-how-long. Why is it that we seem never to hear from the Afghan people?

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By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Seekers# International

Laughing at Death

Last week, two new clients hired me. Each told me a story that ranks among the worst I’ve heard since I’ve been practicing asylum law. The first was an Iraqi grandmother. Her son worked for an international NGO and the family had received threats because of the son’s work. One day, armed militiamen pulled the … Read more

By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Office# Asylum Seekers# National Security

Afghan Asylum Seekers in Limbo

As conditions in Afghanistan have deteriorated, I find myself representing increasing numbers of Afghan asylum seekers. Many are young men who have worked with the United States military. Others are journalists or other media types who have appeared on television in Afghanistan. Still others worked for human rights groups and women’s rights groups. One thing … Read more

By Jason Dzubow
# Asylum Seekers# Human Rights# International

Afghanistan’s Best and Brightest Seek Asylum Abroad

The Washington Post recently reported on a sharp spike in asylum seekers coming from Afghanistan.  The increase corresponds with the U.S. troop surge, and a feeling in the country that a peaceful future is no longer possible. The number of Afghan asylum seekers has surpassed the number of people fleeing Iraq and Somalia, making Afghanistan the … Read more

By Jason Dzubow
# Human Rights

Help for Afghanis “Outed” by Wikileaks

The website Wikileaks, which exists to make public “sensitive material,” recently published the Afghan War Diary, a collection of 75,000 classified documents from the U.S. military detailing ground-level operations in Afghanistan.  Among the information released are names and villages of Afghanis who assisted the United States.  Now, Newsweek magazine reports that a Taliban spokesman has threatened vengeance against the exposed … Read more

By Jason Dzubow