The following is part of a series about how the State Department age determinations for a special immigrant visa applicant’s son put him in needless peril for six years.

In 2018, a U.S. consular officer told special immigrant visa applicant Wali Akrami that he would have to leave his adult son Waheed in Afghanistan if he hoped to escape the Taliban’s death threats and emigrate to the United States. The officer pushed his family’s visas and passports back across the table.