MADISON — Amid the horrifying news that continues to unfold in Afghanistan, the Immigration Legal Services Program at the Catholic Multicultural Center (CMC) in Madison has been working tirelessly to help two families in despair.
One of these Afghan clients, Abdul*, arrived in the US in 2015 with an SIV — Special Immigrant Visa.
These visas are granted to Afghan nationals who have provided services to the United States in the war effort.
Since it is unsafe for them to remain in Afghanistan after serving as our allies on the ground, the SIV was created as a path to their US citizenship.
Abdul falls into this category after having served as an interpreter to the U.S. Marines during the war.
In 2016, Abdul traveled back to Afghanistan to marry Zahra. Later, in 2018, their son Ahmad was born.
Zahra and Ahmad remained in Afghanistan while Abdul was in the process of bringing them to live with him. Everything changed at the beginning of this month.
With the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban take over, Abdul’s fear for the life of his loved ones grew much stronger.
Dealing with obstacles
The obstacles to reuniting this family are staggering.
Just getting to the airport in Kabul where the U.S. Embassy is operating was a harrowing ordeal.
Passing through the Taliban’s checkpoints is a danger, especially for unaccompanied women and children with travel documents issued by the United States.
Led by Janice Beers, the Immigration Legal Services Program team at the Catholic Multicultural Center already knew of the difficulties with the task on their hands when they started looking for ways to reunite this family before the U.S. pullout deadline of August 31.
When a Facebook post from the CMC called the attention of the UW Law School Professor Megan McDermott, the happy ending for this family’s story began to unfold.
Professor McDermott introduced Janice to Anil D’Souza, a Marine, who then was able to connect the CMC’s immigration legal services provider to a group of service members and veterans, who call themselves “Team America”.
The group is led by former Army infantry officer, Joe Saboe, who works around the clock to coordinate a group of volunteer veterans to safely evacuate Afghan allies from the country.
Helping the family
With the assistance of Worth Parker, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel, and his effort called Task Force Dunkirk, they orchestrated an operation to help the family, which had the drama of a Hollywood movie.
The operation did not start smoothly; Zahra and her son were not able to make it to the first meetup on time, and then amidst all the chaos, she lost her phone.
After this bumpy start, all the pieces of a successful evacuation started falling into place.
Zahra and Ahmad were eventually able to connect with their guides who continually helped them navigate the streets of Kabul in order to avoid the Taliban’s checkpoints and finally being able to meet with the special forces who escorted them to the airport.
After great effort, a magnificent display of teamwork by all involved, and extreme courage of a mother and her little son, Zahra and Ahmad were safely flown overnight to Qatar.
The CMC will continue to work with this family as staff members strive to reunite them in the United States. The CMC has also been helping them with the immigration process for the last two years.
As this challenging situation unfolds, the CMC Immigration Legal Services Program expects to receive more calls from Afghans in need of assistance.
If you would like to learn more or to support the CMC’s work to aid Afghan immigrants, visit cmcmadison.org
*Names have been changed to protect identity