BOSTON
\nHaseena Niazi had pinned her hopes of getting her fianc\u00e9 out of Afghanistan on a rarely used immigration provision.
\nThe 24-year-old Massachusetts resident was almost certain his application for humanitarian parole would get approved by the US government, considering the evidence he provided on the threats from the Taliban he received while working on women\u2019s health issues at a hospital near Kabul.
\nBut this month, the request was summarily denied, leaving the couple reeling after months of anxiety.
\n\u201cHe had everything they wanted,\u201d said Niazi, a green card holder originally from Afghanistan. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any sense why they\u2019d reject it. It\u2019s like a bad dream. I still can\u2019t believe it.\u201d
\nFederal immigration officials have issued denial letters to hundreds of Afghans seeking temporary entry into the country for humanitarian reasons in recent weeks, to the dismay of Afghans and their supporters. By doing so, immigrant advocates say, the Biden administration has failed to honor its promise to help Afghans who were left behind after the US military withdrew from the country in August and the Taliban took control.
\n\u201cIt was a huge disappointment,\u201d said Caitlin Rowe, a Texas attorney who said she recently received five denials, including one for an Afghan police officer who helped train US troops and was beaten by the Taliban. \u201cThese are vulnerable people who genuinely thought there was hope, and I don\u2019t think there was.\u201d
\nSince the US withdrawal, US Citizenship and Immigration Services has received more than 35,000 applications for humanitarian parole, of which it has denied about 470 and conditionally approved more than 140, Victoria Palmer, an agency spokesperson, said this week.
\nThe little-known program, which doesn\u2019t 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.
\nPalmer also stressed humanitarian parole is generally reserved for extreme emergencies and not intended to replace the refugee admissions process, \u201cwhich is the typical pathway for individuals outside of the United States who have fled their country of origin and are seeking protection.\u201d
\nThe US government, 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, a process that includes rigorous background checks and vaccinations.
\nMany of them, however, had been whisked out of Afghanistan before the US left. Now, USCIS is tasked with this new wave of humanitarian parole applications and has ramped up staffing to consider them.
\nThe 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.
\nAnd while USCIS stressed that parole shouldn\u2019t replace refugee processing, immigrant advocates argue that isn\u2019t a viable option for Afghans stuck in their country due to a disability or hiding from the Taliban. Even those able to get out of Afghanistan, they say, may be forced to wait years in refugee camps, which isn\u2019t something many can afford to do.
\nMohammad, who asked that his last name not be used out of fear for his family\u2019s safety, said his elder brother, who used to work for international organizations, is among them. He has been in hiding since the Taliban came looking for him following the US withdrawal, Mohammad said.
\nOn a recent visit to the family home, Taliban members took his younger brother instead and held him more than a week for ransom, he said. Now, Mohammad, a former translator for US troops in Afghanistan who lives in California with a special immigration status, is seeking parole for this brother, too. He hopes a conditional approval letter can get them a spot on one of the US evacuation flights still running out of the country.
\n\u201cI can provide him housing. I can provide him everything,\u201d he said. \u201cLet them come here.\u201d
\nImmigrant advocates began filing humanitarian parole applications for Afghans in August in a last-ditch effort to get them on US evacuation flights out of the country before the withdrawal.
\nIn some cases, it worked, and word spread among immigration attorneys that parole, while typically used in extreme emergencies, might be a way out, said Kyra Lilien, director of immigration legal services at Jewish Family & Community Services in California\u2019s East Bay.
\nSoon, attorneys began filing thousands of parole applications for Afghans.
\nWhen the US immigration agency created a website specifically to address these applications, Lilien said she thought it was a sign of hope. By November, however, the agency had posted a list of narrow criteria for Afghan applicants and held a webinar telling attorneys that parole is typically granted only if there\u2019s evidence someone faces \u201cimminent severe harm.\u201d
\nA few weeks later, the denial letters began arriving. Lilien has received more than a dozen but no approvals.
\n\u201cOnce the US packed up and left, anyone who was left behind has only one choice, and that is to pursue this archaic refugee channel,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is just so angering that it took USCIS so long to be clear about that.\u201d
\nWogai Mohmand, an attorney who helps lead the Afghan-focused Project ANAR, said that the group has filed thousands of applications and that since the US troop withdrawal, has seen only denials.
\nThe despair has led some immigration attorneys to give up on filing parole applications altogether. In Massachusetts, the International Institute of New England is holding off filing new applications until it hears on those that are pending after receiving a flurry of denials.
\nChiara St. Pierre, an attorney for the refugee resettlement agency, said she feels clients like Niazi are facing an \u201cunwinnable\u201d battle.
\nFor Niazi\u2019s fianc\u00e9, they had provided copies of written threats sent to the hospital where he works as a medical technician and threatening text messages he said came from Taliban members, she said. It wasn\u2019t enough.
\nA redacted copy of the denial letter provided by St. Pierre lists the USCIS criteria released in November but doesn\u2019t specify why the agency rejected the application, which had been filed in August.
\nFor now, Niazi says her fianc\u00e9 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 fianc\u00e9 visa, but that would take years.
\n\u201cHe can\u2019t wait that long. It\u2019s a miracle every day that he\u2019s alive,\u201d Niazi said. \u201cI\u2019m feeling like every door is closing in on him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOSTON Haseena Niazi had pinned her hopes of getting her fianc\u00e9 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 US government, considering the evidence he provided on the threats from the Taliban he received while working on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-235954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n