Afghans still adjusting to the United States: New life, new struggles
WASHINGTON — Taliban forces had taken the Afghan capital. Crowds of panicked people thronged the airport. And a young man who had worked as a subcontractor for the U.S. military faced a terrible choice.
Hasibullah Hasrat, after having navigated the chaotic streets and Taliban checkpoints to make it inside the airport, could either go back for his wife and two young children or board an evacuation flight and get them later. Not taking the flight likely meant none of them would get out of Afghanistan.
Hasrat’s decision haunts him. He is in the U.S., one of more than 78,000 Afghans admitted into the country following the U.S. troop withdrawal in August that ended America’s longest war. But his family hasn’t been able to join him. They’re still in Afghanistan, where an economic crisis has led to widespread hunger and where Taliban repression is on the rise.
“My wife is alone there,” he said, his voice breaking as he describes nightly phone calls home. “My son cries, asks where I am, when am I coming. And I don’t know what to say.”
It’s a reminder that the journey for many of the Afghans who came to the United States in the historic evacuation remains very much a work in progress, filled with uncertainty and anxiety about the future.
Afghan refugees, some of whom faced possible reprisals for working with their government or American forces during the war with the Taliban, say in interviews that they are grateful to the U.S. for rescuing them and family members.
But they are often struggling to gain a foothold in a new land, straining to pay their bills as assistance from the government and resettlement agencies starts to run out, stuck in temporary housing, and trying to figure out how to apply for asylum because most of the Afghans came under a two-year emergency status known as humanitarian parole.
“We are not sure what may happen,” said Gulsom Esmaelzade, whose family has been shuttled between hotel rooms in the San Diego area since January, after spending three months at a New Jersey military base. “We don’t have anything back at home in Afghanistan and here we also don’t have any future.”
It’s taken a toll. Esmaelzade said her mother has had to be rushed three times to the emergency room when her blood pressure shot up to dangerous levels. The younger woman attributes it to the stress of their lives.
Then there are more mundane challenges that are nonetheless daunting for many Afghans. They include learning English, navigating government bureaucracies and public transportation, and finding a job.
There is also the isolation for those, like Hasrat, who came alone. “I don’t know anyone here,” he said in the apartment outside Washington he shares with two other evacuees. “I have no friends, no family, no relatives. I just live with my roommates and my roommates are from other parts of Afghanistan.”
Some have managed to get established. “But there are many more who are not doing fine than are doing well,” said Megan Flores, executive director of the Immigrant & Refugee Outreach Center in McLean, Virginia.
The experience of the evacuated Afghans is not unlike what refugees have historically faced in coming to the United States. In some ways it’s a preview for the up to 100,000 Ukrainians who President Joe Biden says will be welcomed, also in many cases on two years of humanitarian parole.
Afghans on humanitarian parole must apply for a way to stay in the country such as through asylum. It’s a timeconsuming process that typically requires finding an immigration attorney, at a cost of thousands of dollars not readily available to most refugees unless they can find someone to do it pro bono.
The Department of Homeland Security says about half of the 78,000 likely will ultimately qualify for the special immigrant visa, or SIV, program. It grants permanent residency to people, along with their immediate family, who worked for the U.S. government. Hasrat hasn’t been able to secure an SIV, at least not yet, despite his work as a subcontractor setting up transmission lines for the U.S. Army.
Congress could resolve the situation by passing the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would enable evacuees to apply for permanent residency after a year in the country, similar to relief granted in the past to people from Iraq, Cuba and Vietnam.