Fatima’s application to join the United States for humanitarian reasons has been pending her whole life.
Fatima will turn one in September, as will the emergency immigration application she filed to the US authorities a week after her birth.
Fatima’s parents were given special permission to enter the United States last year because of her father’s position in the Afghan presidential palace before to the Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan, according to official papers.
However, the United States has yet to rule on the application submitted on behalf of Fatima, who was born just 16 days after her parents’ applications were accepted. The family’s confidence in the United States and its pledge to provide sanctuary to vulnerable Afghans has been tested by the 10-month wait.
“We are in a really horrible position,” said Fatima’s father, Mohammed, whose application for humanitarian parole, or special entry into the United States, was approved on September 1, 2021. “The situation is becoming more difficult by the day. This is identical to a jail.”
Since their departure from Afghanistan in October 2021, the family has been stranded in the United Arab Emirates. They requested that their identities be altered, expressing worries for their safety and the safety of family in Afghanistan as a result of Mohammed’s position as a high-ranking officer in the presidential palace.
Mohammed, his wife, and Fatima are among thousands of Afghan refugees who have been detained in third countries for months — and in some instances, almost a year — waiting for the United States to consent to relocate them, even nearly a year after Kabul’s fall and the chaotic U.S. evacuations.
According to previously secret US State Department statistics released by CBS News, some 6,500 Afghan refugees remain at the Emirates Humanitarian City, an apartment complex on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi that the UAE agreed to turn into a temporary refugee housing facility.
Some of the Afghans in the Humanitarian City came in the UAE last summer, just after Kabul’s US-backed administration fell. Others were evacuated from Afghanistan on charter planes controlled by civilian organizations last October. They include Afghans wishing for a Special Immigrant Visa because they helped the US war effort; families and individuals who feel they may be targeted by the Taliban because of their employment, ethnicity, gender, or other factors; and other evacuees who were able to board an evacuation aircraft.
Those living in the Humanitarian City, in contrast to the more than 70,000 Afghans who were directly evacuated and then quickly resettled by the US last year after some security vetting, have been subjected to a slower, case-by-case immigration review by US officials that does not include a guarantee of U.S. resettlement.
The differential processing is the result of US policy. Afghans who were evacuated to the UAE by August 31, 2021, were practically assured entry into the United States provided they completed certain medical and security procedures, according to the State Department. Those who came after August 31, 2021, however, have been asked to demonstrate their eligibility for a U.S. immigration benefit, such as a visa or refugee status.
Kabul was taken over by the Taliban on August 15, 2021, and the last US military jets departed the country just before midnight on August 31. The quick invasion triggered a humanitarian disaster, displacing millions of Afghans. Hundreds of thousands of people crossed the border into neighboring Pakistan, including unregistered migrants who told CBS News about their suffering in June. Afghan exiles subjected to heightened scrutiny at a US military post in Kosovo told CBS News they felt “like prisoners.”
According to the State Department, the US is assessing the cases of all Afghans who have been left at the Humanitarian City. According to the government, the United States has continued to process some Afghans there, stating that a total of 17,000 evacuees have gone through the Humanitarian City and that the majority of those who have left have been resettled in the United States.
However, the State Department recognized that not all Afghans in the Humanitarian City would be eligible for resettlement in the United States, stating that it has been pressing other nations to relocate those refugees.
The State Department stated in a statement, “The United States is completely committed to assisting Afghans at Emirates Humanitarian City in reaching their ultimate destination.” “We anticipate welcoming many more people to the United States in the foreseeable future as our commitment to our Afghan partners endures.”
However, supporters claim that Afghans in the Humanitarian City have been treated unfairly, if not ignored, solely because of the aircraft they were evacuated on and who handled their evacuation.
According to Joseph Robert, a US veteran who coordinated the evacuation and transfer of certain Afghans to the UAE, it is up to individual American residents and the Emirati government to assist at-risk Afghans who were left behind after the hasty US military pullout.
“Those Afghans in the UAE have been left in limbo, afraid of their future, unable to care for their loved ones still suffering in Afghanistan,” Robert added.
While there is no firm deadline for relocating the remaining Afghans at the Humanitarian City to the United States or third countries, a facility in Leesburg, Virginia, used by the Biden administration to process new Afghan arrivals, is set to run out of congressional funding at the end of September.
It’s also uncertain how long the Emirati government will be ready to supply Afghans with homes and other essential requirements. The UAE government claimed in a statement to CBS News that it was working with the US “to relocate Afghan evacuees in a timely way,” stressing that the agreement to lodge them was made on a “temporary basis.”
“The UAE remains committed to this ongoing collaboration with the US and other international partners to ensure that Afghan evacuees can live in safety, security, and dignity,” the Emirati government added, adding that it is providing Afghans with sanitation, health, clinical, counseling, education, and food services.
The wait has grown painful for Mohammed, a former presidential palace staffer. Mohammed’s family feels gloomy whenever they witness fellow Afghans leaving the Humanitarian City.
The fact that they are not permitted to leave the Humanitarian City has exacerbated the problem, he claims. “We are in the room day and night,” Mohammed stated, claiming that the extended and indefinite detention has impacted his family’s mental health. Because of her age and the agency’s acceptance of her parents’ applications, Elizabeth Rieser-Murphy, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society who represents Mohammed’s family, believes the baby’s humanitarian parole application should be expedited by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
“We appreciate that USCIS has limited resources due to the large number of outstanding parole petitions, but this is a unique case. Keeping this family in limbo is both cruel and inhumane “Rieser-Murphy said that the family has U.S. citizen relatives in New York who are eager to welcome them.
According to unreleased USCIS statistics, the USCIS has received roughly 48,900 humanitarian parole petitions from Afghans living abroad since July 2021. According to agency statistics, of the 8,427 parole petitions it had evaluated as of July 28, USCIS refused 8,058 of them, or roughly 96 percent of them.
If his infant is denied entry into the United States and his family is forced to return to Afghanistan, Mohammed fears he will be imprisoned or perhaps murdered, citing examples of former Afghan government leaders being kidnapped or executed by the Taliban.
“Perhaps this is the future of our existence,” he speculated.