MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Afghans from throughout the Twin Cities metro gathered Wednesday night time to have a good time a winter solstice vacation and their group, simply as lots of its most up-to-date members are dealing with renewed nervousness about having to face loss of life or persecution in the event that they should return to their homeland. 

About 50 individuals got here to the Afghan Cultural Society’s (ACS) occasion commemorating Shab-e-Yalda, a solstice pageant with roots within the Zoroastrianism faith by which households collect on the longest, darkest night time of the 12 months to eat, dance and browse poetry to one another till daybreak. It is celebrated in areas as soon as coated by the traditional Persian empire, together with Iran, Afghanistan, and components of Iraq and Turkey. 

Nasreen Sajady, co-founder and advocacy director at ACS, defined many of the males, ladies and a few kids who talked, danced and performed chess collectively Wednesday night time had arrived comparatively just lately in Minnesota, having fled or been evacuated from their homeland after the Taliban took over final August following the withdrawal of U.S. troops. 

They got here to america with momentary two-year visas known as “humanitarian parole,” set to run out subsequent summer time. The Afghan Adjustment Act, a invoice launched in August by a bipartisan group of senators together with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., would have granted them inexperienced playing cards — however it was dropped from Congress’ omnibus spending invoice this week.    

The outcome: Afghan refugees, together with many who had labored with U.S. troops or the U.S. authorities, have been left in immigration limbo. 

“The unknown is s very scary. They do not know if they are going to be right here. They do not know if they are going to be despatched again, and we get calls repeatedly,” Sajady stated. “Individuals are very anxious about this — for his or her bodily well being, for his or her psychological well being. It’s simply extraordinarily necessary that we do no matter we are able to to get this invoice handed.”

The Afghan Cultural Society is asking supporters to name Senate leaders, together with Majority Chief Church Schumer, to ask them to take up the invoice once more.  

‘My life could be at risk’

Zahra Wahidy understands the urgency greater than most. Had she not left the nation in September 2021, she would probably have been focused by the Taliban for a minimum of three causes: 

• She is a lady who labored as a journalist/reporter
• She went on to work as a researcher for USAID, serving to to guage tasks
• She is Hazara, a largely Shia Muslim ethnic group that the Taliban has an extended historical past of violently oppressing and persecuting

Zahra Wahidy, a former Afghan journalist who labored as a researcher for USAID, fled her homeland after the Taliban retook the county final August. She now lives in Minnesota on a brief visa and fears she will likely be killed if she is compelled to return t

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She initially fled to a refugee camp within the United Arab Emirates earlier than coming to Minnesota 4 months in the past on a humanitarian parole visa. She had utilized for a visa that has a path to residency — a program for Afghans who labored for the U.S. authorities — greater than a 12 months in the past however hasn’t obtained any current updates, and she will be able to’t apply for asylum whereas that software continues to be pending.  

When she heard in regards to the Afghan Adjustment Act, it gave her hope she would possibly have the ability to get residency within the U.S. Now, if nothing modifications, she must return to Afghanistan when her momentary visa expires. 

“I can’t even think about that at some point I am going to Afghanistan. We see each day that the state of affairs will get worse, particularly for ladies… I can’t see myself alive there. I can’t as a result of in the event that they know that I labored with USAID and in the event that they know that I used to be a journalist, my life could be at risk.”

Veteran assist and one other blow 

Manuel Mancha, a former U.S. Marine from Minneapolis who served in Afghanistan, additionally attended the Shabe Yalda festivities. Quite a few veteran teams lobbied for the act, describing it as a approach for the US to offer one thing again to the hundreds of Afghans who risked their lives to work with U.S. troops.

Mancha additionally sees the act as a small step the U.S. can take to “make proper” the errors it made in the course of the struggle. 

“It could give extra short-term stability, but in addition intergenerational stability for the youngsters, to the elders which have come into america on the lookout for refuge,” he stated. “And it is a part of beginning on the very minimal.. a bedrock for reparations.”

Whereas the temper on the occasion was upbeat, the act’s failure in Congress wasn’t the one disappointing information on individuals’s minds. On Tuesday, the Taliban introduced that ladies could be banned from all universities in Afghanistan. 

“There was one thing I learn — somebody had posted it and it was saying that being an Afghan is like getting your coronary heart punched each single day. Each single day we get up, there’s a blow. So that is what it seems like. It seems like one other blow. And we simply should proceed being resilient for over 40 years of blows,” Sajady stated.