To ensure the United States “remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution,” on Jan. 20, the Biden administration committed that “hardworking [noncitizens] who enrich our communities every day and who have lived [in the U.S.] for years” would have “an opportunity to earn citizenship.”
Unfortunately, the administration has shown far less fervor toward granting safe haven or the path to citizenship they were offered to those who incurred substantial risk at our behest during nearly 20 years of overseas missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An executive order from Feb. 4 initiated a 180-day review of the beleaguered special immigrant visa program, which was created in 2006 to grant residency and eventual citizenship to Iraqi and Afghan interpreters whose lives were endangered by their work with U.S. forces. The proffered timeline will do little to aid the interpreters who are being increasingly targeted for death by the Taliban and other terrorist groups as the U.S. conducts its withdrawal from Afghanistan by September.
This is deeply concerning. To date, an estimated 1,000 linguists in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed while awaiting visas.
In turn, the administration must make speedier efforts to procure safe haven for interpreters and their families while simultaneously rectifying the SIV program’s substantial shortcomings. In Afghanistan, the SIV program has been a devastating failure, offering little safety and a great deal of difficulty for many who have applied. Despite promises of a nine-month turnaround, applications take an average of 658 days to fulfill, with a backlog of 18,800 applicants awaiting processing. Countless additional interpreters have had their applications denied for rationales that are unexplained, arbitrary, or unjust.
Among the interpreters imperiled by our bureaucratic snafus is “Zack,” whose name is being withheld due to concerns for his safety. The father of four children, ranging from five months to 6 years of age, resides in a province with heavy Taliban influence. He lives in constant danger of Taliban retribution.
Although he first applied to the visa program in 2016, Zack’s application has been hamstrung by multiple issues, including an incomprehensible problem with the wording of his supervisor’s letter of recommendation. While the letter states that Zack poses no threat to the U.S., difficulties seem to stem from Zack’s inability to demonstrate adequate employment history, a common complaint among applicants. Zack can prove he worked with the Marine Corps’s 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment during its very hard-fought campaign in Helmand province from October 2010 to April 2011.
However, the contracting agency that oversaw his subsequent two-year tour as an Army interpreter is “either defunct or [does] not respond” to Zack’s requests, according to Marine Corps Maj. Thomas Schueman. Schueman has been helping Zack with his application since 2016. As the situation grows dire, he is pursuing all available avenues to get his former interpreter and his family to safety in the U.S. as quickly as possible.
Schueman is adamant that Zack’s service, like his character, was exemplary. He reported that most interpreters who arrived in Sangin abandoned their posts after going on a single patrol through deadly minefields or experiencing a lengthy firefight with the Taliban. Zack, however, never faltered in his courage. He was always willing to patrol and performed acts of heroic daring to assist the Marines.
Zack was also an especially effective communicator. While most interpreters speak some English and the prevailing Afghan dialect of Dari, he was fluent in Dari, English, and the Pashto dialect spoken in much of southern Afghanistan. His skills made Zack “a force multiplier,” Schueman said. Without him, he added, “we could not have accomplished our mission.”
While he was working in Sangin, the Taliban discovered Zack’s identity and made threats against his and his family’s lives. Zack said he often now receives threatening calls from unknown phone numbers. Stating he is in “big danger,” Zack explained that “the only way [to remain safe] is to leave Afghanistan,” as other interpreters have done. Echoing harrowing news stories of the rising dangers to interpreters, former interpreter Nawid Rahimy painted a dismal picture of Taliban reprisals. The Taliban, he said, “hate interpreters” and “would not wait a second to execute any former interpreter they might find.”
Rahimy, who now lives in the U.S., told of an interpreter he once worked with, who was known to the Taliban. While the interpreter attempted to flee to safety in another province, the Taliban ambushed his vehicle, executing and beheading him. The Taliban then sent “his body back to his family with a note saying that this is what [the] Taliban would do to any interpreter they find.”
President Joe Biden’s immediate action is necessary. America must fulfill the promises made to those who bravely assisted our armed forces at great danger to themselves. The Biden administration is focused on “dreamers and the essential workers who have risked their lives to serve and protect American communities,” but its order for a review of the program merely pays lip service to the “ongoing, serious threat” to imperiled interpreters such as Zack.
This is intolerable. Biden must secure safe haven for Zack and his compatriots while addressing shortcomings in the program.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
