Afghan arrivals caught in name limbo
U.S. allies brought here seek to shed moniker of ‘first name unknown’
Ebadullah spent nine years as a translator on U.S. Army combat missions in some of Afghanistan’s most dangerous areas. When the Taliban eventually started following him and threatening his family, he applied for a special American visa created for translators at risk.
But it took four years until it was approved in 2015. Thrilled and relieved, Ebadullah, who like many Afghans is known mainly by his given name, to reopen his official paperwork — and was dumbfounded by what the U.S. government listed as his first name.
“I thought, ‘What does it mean, FNU?’ I thought it was some American thing ,” said Ebadullah, 29, who is now a security guard in Houston. “Then I got to the airport and realized, ‘Oh, I got a new name.’”
The abbreviation indicates that Ebadullah’s first name is “unknown,” at least
in the eyes of U.S. bureaucrats, who renamed him FNU Ebadullah on his visa. That means his green card, driver’s license, Social Security card and every other official document follows suit. Likewise, his wife is now FNU Mena and his four small children, FNU Rawena, FNU Mojeba, FNU Son a ulla hand F NU La my eh.
The dilemma is widespread among the thousands of Afghans who have come here after working with U.S. forces, according to resettlement advocates. The problem is deceptively straightforward: The U.S. government doesn’t recognize first-name only customs or traditions where people are referred to as belonging to a certain tribe or as the descendant of a relative.
It shows what can happen when bureaucracy doesn’t mesh neat ly with particular ethnic conventions. But critics say such a disconnect on a seemingly simple issue is just the tip of how the United States has mishandled its Afghan contractors whose cooperation endangered their lives and those of their families.
Three letters, many issues
“It’s absurd,” said Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria who is dean of the George Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University. “It’s funny, except it isn’t, both from the perspective of the dignity of having your own name and the very real complications that result.”
Ebadullah’s Afghan passport, for instance, says that he is of Nasiry, a sprawling tribe that goes back centuries. His cousin, also a translator with the U.S. military now living in Houston, is named on his Afghan documents as Rezashah of Zahery, his grandfather’ s name.
The U.S. State Department said it recognizes the problem, but it is not allowed to use Afghan notations like “son of.”
“Name structures in Afghanistan differ from those in the United States,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “Ensuring that names are entered consistently is important for the security checks against various databases. ... This is standard practice worldwide for all visa applicants who only have onename.”
So, faced with little choice, many Afghans have wearily accepted the acronym, which they pronounce “Fnoo,” as their Western moniker. At first, it was humorous, causing them to giggle bashfully at their plight.
But the mix-up is serious. Because their green cards don’t match their Afghan passports, they can’t travel out of the country, since it could complicate their ability to return. An Afghan translator in Houston who wanted to enlist with the U.S. military was denied because of the discrepancy between his two names.
Another man lost his job because he arrived late to work. He had waited for hours in a doctor’s reception area, not understanding that the name being called referred to him. Flights are missed when people don’t recognize their name on the loudspeaker. At school and at work, children and adults are taunted, especially when entire families share one name. It’s a loss of face. First names carry a particular cache in Afghanistan precisely because people mostly only goby one.
“People always say, ‘What’s your first name, is it a name?’ ‘Yeah, it’s a name,’” Ebadullah said. “When we go somewhere, they always ask ,‘ Why does everyone have the same name ?’”
His cousin, Rezashah, found himself searching for an explanation that his 5-year-old daughter could understand.
“She was upset,” said Rezashah, 30, whowas honored by the military after he helped an American soldier reach safety during a 2009 Taliban attack on their armed vehicle in Kunduz. “She asked, ‘Why are they calling us all FNU? Myname is Dyna.’”
“That’s just our American name now,” he told her, but the child remained perplexed.
Sluggish visa process
Critics say the government should be able to fix the problem given that it has been able to work with Afghan naming structures to enter suspects into terrorism watchlists.
“There, we have multiple spellings and orderings of names in multiple languages— but because it’s a priority, we worked it out,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a former national security analyst at the Congressional Budget Office who specializes in national security policy for the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
Duplicating whatever way people are called on their Afghan documents is the most obvious solution, said Crocker, the former ambassador, noting that this is “not beyond human capacity to resolve.”
He and others say this simple mismatch is just one of the ways in which the United States is failing its Afghan contractors, and to a lesser extent the Iraqis, whom it worked with during the conflicts in their countries.
Congress created a special visa for Iraqis in 2006 after soldiers asked lawmakers to allow their translators to come here and receive green cards if they are in danger at home. Legislators also included some Iraqis who had worked with the U.S. government and later extended the benefit to certain Afghan translators and contractors.
But the program has been slow, riddled with inefficiency, and expensive and complicated to apply and qualify for. Last month, a Congressional Research Service report on the visa initiative said implementing it has “proven difficult.”
Only about 3,200 Afghan and Iraqi translators and their families have received this type of visa since 2007, according to the State Department, compared to about 40,000who advocacy groups estimate are in need.
In Ebadullah’s case, his visa was denied three times, even after he twice saved his American sergeant’s life in firefights with the Taliban.
Then the militants started trailing Ebadullah, sending him notes on official letterhead calling him an infidel. He had to appeal to his American co-workers to lobby on his behalf before finally winning approval last year.
That’s around the time that immigration attorneys at Neighborhood Centers Inc., a Houston nonprofit, began to notice a pattern among their Afghan clients. Every family included at least one person called FNU who was desperate to change their name, said Leslie Crow, an attorney. They researched what they could do to help and decided the easiest way, barring any adjustment from the Department of Homeland Security, was to file a name-change petition in state civil court.
About 20 Afghan families attended a recent weekend workshop at the Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center in Sharpstown to fill out the paperwork. Given the need, Crow expects to hold several more sessions over the next fewmonths.
In attendance was Alijan of Nazari, denoting his tribe’s name. The 24-year-old spent five years helping the U.S. military train Afghan police and security forces.
“If you don’t know the language, you can’t teach anything,” he said.
Then a translator friend was killed in a suicide bombing, and Ali jan began receiving threats. He came to Houston in 2014, but because his green card doesn’ t match his Afghan passport, he can’t visit home.
“My supervisor, my manager, they know me as FNU because that’s what’s on my paperwork,” he said. “But it’s not my real name.”
‘We are not feeling complete’
Filing the petition is only the first step in the complex, timeconsuming and costly process to get Alijan his name back. After the court approves his request, he’ll have to change his driver’s license, Social Security card, car insurance, bank account and apply for a new green card. Altogether, it can add upton early $2,000 in fees.
Such an overwhelming prospect has some Afghans resigning themselves to a lifetime as a First Name Unknown. But the vast majority want their name back, no matter the hassle.
“Because it’s my name,” said Helmand, 31, who worked for a U.S. construction company in Afghanistan but nowis studying for his MBA. “I love my name like I love myself.”
His friend, 26-year-old Nisar, concurred. He, too, worked for a U.S. construction company until the Taliban attacked his house. Now he’ s employed in Houston by Refugee Services of Texas, where he said more than two dozen Afghan clients share his problem.
“Everyone has a headache,” he said. “We are not feeling complete with this name.”