San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
U.S. MUST REDUCE CHAOS IN NATION IT ABANDONED
Iremember the day the Taliban first assumed control in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1996. I remember being a scared little girl. I remember the dangling feet of the men who were hanged outside our apartment building, unable to grasp what it all meant as a kid.
I remember living in fear. The bombs. The rockets. The loss of hope. The Taliban forbid women from working and girls from attending school. They stripped women of all basic human rights.
I remember the moment my mother opened a letter and choked back tears as she told my three siblings and I, “We are going to America!” The clothes on our backs, our ID cards, and the $50 my mother had after selling her wedding band were all we could take as we set off to a new and foreign land.
My father had been a surgeon in the Afghan army and refused to flee the war as his services were desperately needed. Sadly, his life was tragically cut short; shrapnel pierced the back of his head, severing his vertebral artery. Without any medical care as a war raged around him, he bled out in front of his young wife and four children.
This tragedy left my mother to be the main provider of our household, and life became even more difficult when the Taliban took over the country and imposed its atrociously strict and inhumane laws.
The Taliban deemed women’s education both unlawful and spiritually sinful. My future would have been disappointingly bleak had it not been for my mother. She defied the Taliban and put her life at risk, educating young Afghan girls like me in our basement.
We sought asylum and were one of the few lucky families to be assisted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
I went from being a young illiterate Afghan refugee to obtaining an education, and I successfully managed to get accepted into the medical school of my choice.
Today, I am a board-certified physician in California. My older brother is also a licensed physician in California, and my two oldest brothers have master’s degrees from Columbia University and UC Merced. They are software architects and entrepreneurs today.
We have made a lot of ourselves with the opportunities we have been given, much like the Afghans in Afghanistan have done in the past two decades of progress.
Our life story is not at all unique. Many Afghans have suffered similar fates. The fortunate ones who are able to escape the turmoil caused by internal corruption and external proxy wars have made much of themselves in the nations that have provided them with more security.
The unfortunate ones are back under Taliban control due to the hasty and failed withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, which has now plunged the country back into chaos and put the fate of nearly 40 million Afghans into the hands of a barbaric and inhumane group of extremist jihadist terrorists.
Together, let us stand united in helping the people of Afghanistan. For the United States and President Joe Biden to correct the current course, the following must immediately happen:
1) Prioritize emergency evacuations for Afghans. Leverage U.S. influence to secure the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and supply additional governmentrun evacuation flights for Afghans.
2) Expand and expedite processing Special Immigrant Visas and Priority-1 and Priority-2 designations. Broaden eligibility and remove unnecessary barriers to meet strict requirements for P-1, P-2 and SIVS that significantly delay the approval process, and increase processing capacity. Create a special humanitarian parole program to meet this urgent need. Use diplomatic channels to urge allies to drop visa requirements.
3) Deliver immediate humanitarian assistance. Provide urgent humanitarian assistance to vulnerable communities in Afghanistan, including internally displaced persons, women-focused nongovernmental organizations, persecuted ethnic and religious groups targeted by the Taliban, and others. Help establish a humanitarian corridor and secure a guarantee from the Taliban to allow humanitarian NGOS and their supply chains to operate freely in all areas.
4) Welcome Afghan refugees. Increase the annual refugee allocation by 100,000 and reassess based on need. Instate Temporary Protected Status for all Afghan refugees.
is a a board-certified family medicine physician in private practice and lives in San Diego.