Many Afghans denied special US entry status
Humanitarian parole advocated for vulnerable
– Haseena Niazi had pinned her hopes of getting her fiancé out of Afghanistan on a rarely used immigration provision.
The 24-year-old Massachusetts resident was almost certain his application for humanitarian parole would get approved by the U.S. government, considering the evidence he provided on the threats from the Taliban he received while working at a hospital near Kabul.
But this month, the request was summarily denied.
“It doesn’t make any sense why they’d reject it. It’s like a bad dream. I still can’t believe it,” said Niazi, a green card holder originally from Afghanistan.
Federal immigration officials have issued denial letters to hundreds of Afghans seeking temporary entry into the U.S. for humanitarian reasons in recent weeks. By doing so, immigrant advocates say, the Biden administration has failed to honor its promise to help Afghans left behind after the U.S. military withdrew from the country in August.
“It was a huge disappointment,” said Caitlin Rowe, a Texas attorney who said she recently received five denials. “These are vulnerable people who genuinely thought there was hope, and I don’t think there was.”
Since the U.S. withdrawal, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received more than 35,000 applications for humanitarian parole, of which it has denied about 470 and conditionally approved over 140, Victoria Palmer, an agency spokesperson, said last week.
The little-known program, which doesn’t provide a path to lawful permanent residence in the country, typically receives fewer than 2,000 requests annually from all nationalities, of which USCIS approves an average of about 500, she said.
Palmer also stressed that humanitarian parole is generally reserved for extreme emergencies and not intended to replace the usual refugee admissions process.
The U.S., meanwhile, continues to help vulnerable Afghans, evacuating more than 900 American citizens and residents and another 2,200 Afghans since the military withdrawal. The State Department said it expects to help resettle as many as 95,000 people from Afghanistan this fiscal year.
Many of them, however, had been whisked out of Afghanistan before the U.S. left. Now, USCIS is tasked with this new wave of humanitarian parole APPLIBOSTON
cations and has ramped up staffing to consider them.
The agency said in a statement that requests are reviewed on an individual basis, with consideration given to immediate relatives of Americans and Afghans airlifted out.
And while USCIS stressed that parole shouldn’t replace refugee processing, immigrant advocates argue that isn’t a viable option for Afghans stuck in their country due to a disability or hiding from the Taliban.
For now, Niazi said her fiancé is living and working far from Kabul as they weigh their options. They could potentially wait until Niazi becomes an American citizen so she can try to bring him here on a fiancé visa, but that would take years.
“He can’t wait that long. It’s a miracle every day that he’s alive,” Niazi said. “I’m feeling like every door is closing in on him.”