Pregnant wife of Canadian veteran stuck in Pakistan
Interpreter feels abandoned by Ottawa
OTTAWA • Five months pregnant and stranded in Pakistan on a now-expired visa, a former military interpreter and wife of a Canadian combat veteran was refused permission to travel to Canada because officials were concerned she'd overstay her visa. The interpreter, who the National Post isn't identifying out of concerns for her safety, made it out of a besieged Kabul last September with the help of her husband Eric, a former CAF member who completed two frontline rotations during Canada's 14-year Afghanistan mission.
“The whole thing is a nightmare,” Eric told the National Post on Monday, who in the interests of his wife's safety requested his surname be withheld. His is not just an individual case. Veterans groups working in Afghanistan to fulfil Canada's promise to take in Afghans who helped Canadian troops during the Afghan mission are also fed up with Canadian bureaucracy.
On Monday, the Veterans Transition Network — responsible for rescuing over 2,000 Afghan interpreters and their family members — announced the end of their work in Afghanistan, citing impenetrable Canadian immigration policies and staff burnout.
Eric's wife has been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo — forced to live alone in Pakistan while they both try to sort through confusing and often conflicting advice from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officials. She has qualified for Canada's special immigration program for CAF interpreters and other Afghan civilians who aided Canadian troops.
He told the National Post of a recent visit to Pakistan that uncovered what hardships his wife is forced to endure.
As a pregnant Afghan woman living on her own, she's reportedly become the target of scrutiny and suspicion by her neighbours, Eric says, especially after word got out that she married a Canadian.
“They don't make it easy for Afghans in Pakistan,” he said, describing the ordeals they endured just finding her a place to stay.
“All the places I went to and all of the apartments I looked at — I had no problem getting it because I was Canadian, but as soon as they found out she was Afghan they said `no.'” They finally found a landlord willing to rent her room, but at a much higher rent than advertised.
Even the simple act of sending her money has become onerous, as scrutiny from both government officials and local Western Union agents now requires him to ask friends in his city's Afghan community to send her money on his behalf.
“She can't go out, she has to get her friend to go do groceries for her,” he said.
Eric turned to his local MP for help, who put him in touch with Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.
“I don't know if he was supposed to get back to me or not,” he said. “Nobody contacted me, so it just died — I don't know what the next step is.”
His encounter with Fraser led to a frustratingly fruitless conversation with an IRCC caseworker, who promised him that his wife would be in Canada “within a month,” gave assurances that she would be exempt from customary medical exams due to her pregnancy, and encouraged Eric to apply for a Canadian travel visa right away.
“Then I got papers saying that I'm missing documents,” he said, explaining he'd already submitted the forms IRCC claimed were missing. That was followed by information from a U.K.based IRCC representative that the application can't be processed without a medical exam — despite previous assurances she was exempt.
Frustrated but fearful of derailing the process, she underwent the medical exam last week — but was told processing could take months.
Canada's Afghan mission relied on the skills of hundreds of civilian interpreters, security staff and embassy workers, who in 2009 were promised a “pathway to permanent residence” in return for their service. That program was extended to include children, parents and siblings last November. Advocates spent years urging the federal government to accelerate the program, including a December 2020 letter to cabinet from Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski.
Co-signed by 22 fellow Liberal MPs and sent a full eight months before the Taliban retook Afghanistan, Powlowski's letter was ignored by senior government officials.
Canada's half-hearted evacuation of Kabul left thousands behind, and helped bring to light years of broken promises to our civilian interpreters. Delays and broken promises are enduring sore spots for those Afghan interpreters fortunate enough to successfully navigate the process.
Testifying before last week's Commons committee on Afghanistan, former CAF interpreter Ahmad Shoaib told MPs of the countless broken promises he and his colleagues have endured from the federal government.
“Afghan interpreters were once heroes to the government of Canada," he told the committee. “Today they are zeros because they are stressed, depressed, panicking.”