With ongoing humanitarian crises, Sacramento cannot forget about Afghan refugees | Opinion

Brave Afghans who fled their home and the atrocities they faced under oppressive Taliban rule continue to be unjustly mired in the U.S. immigration system. Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, tens of thousands of people have waited years for their applications for U.S. humanitarian parole to be processed. As immigration attorneys from a nonprofit organization providing legal support to students at the University of California and their family members, we urge the Biden Administration to adjudicate humanitarian parole applications quickly given the dire urgency.

U.S. humanitarian parole is a form of legal authorization to travel to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons. Seeking safety from Afghanistan’s oppressive and dangerous conditions under Taliban rule is one such example. Unfortunately, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the adjudicating agency, received 44,785 applications from Afghan citizens between January 1, 2020, and April 6, 2022, of which it adjudicated only 2,360 (about 5%), and approved only 114 (less than 1%), according to an American Immigration Council article earlier this year.

Meanwhile, despite efforts to introduce a new law granting permanent relief to Afghans paroled into the U.S., Congress failed to pass it in its July session.

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For Afghan citizens, humanitarian parole can save lives. We recently helped an individual arrive in the U.S. and reunite with her last surviving family member in the Sacramento area after an 18-month application process (to protect our clients’ privacy and safety, we do not include their names). Her journey of survival during the long wait for USCIS adjudication involved fleeing from Afghanistan to Pakistan, being subjected to a forced marriage and assault and suffering a crippling fear of deportation.

Here is our client’s story in her own words:

“Living in Pakistan is very challenging for Afghan refugees, especially women. First, I had to pay over $1,000 for Pakistan’s visa to get there. I was lucky to have a personal connection with foreign journalists to help me flee Kabul alone since the Taliban doesn’t let women board the plane without a male relative. When I arrived in Pakistan, I was forced to marry my landlord’s son because he sexually assaulted me. According to them, marrying him was the only way out of that shame. I was held like a hostage in their home. They wouldn’t let me talk to my sister or even go to the doctor when I got sick.

I was lucky I had my sister in the Sacramento area who helped me escape him and his abuse through her connections in Pakistan. Over the one year I stayed in Pakistan, the difficulties I endured were unspeakable. I thought of ending my life and being done with everything. My mental pain turned into physical pain, and I felt as if my soul was being dipped into boiling water.

I recently learned that the Afghan girl who was renting the room down the hall jumped off the roof and died. Then I saw it on the news. It broke my heart that she was only 20 years old with hopes and dreams. Her application was pending with the U.S. embassy like mine. I understand why she took her life. When I was in her place, I thought of it, too. You are in limbo with an unknown future. It feels like you are dead, and this is hell. Even when my application was approved, USCIS asked that a third-party organization vouch for me and my story. The only third-party organization I knew in Pakistan was (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and they did not help me at all. Once again, I relied on the journalist who helped me physically escape my ex-husband to write what she witnessed. Not everyone gets lucky to find an extraordinary human to put herself and her job at risk and help a stranger.”

Our client’s experience shows that it essentially takes miracles for an Afghan national to reach the U.S., both in legally receiving parole and in physically surviving long enough to do so. Thousands of others in similar situations deserve a chance to be safe. USCIS should promptly process, adjudicate and approve Afghan parole applications because this fulfills the very purpose of humanitarian parole.

The Biden administration must honor our government’s commitment to its Afghan allies by welcoming the thousands of Afghan Humanitarian Parole applicants still waiting in limbo. The existing process is embarrassingly inadequate, and many families remain unsafe. For both Congress and the Biden administration, the time to act is now.

Christopher Relos is a staff attorney and Rachel Ray is the managing attorney at the UC Immigrant Legal Services Center at the UC Davis School of Law.