Vt. advocates call for green cards for Afghans who helped the US as evacuations continue overseas

This week marks three years since the Taliban captured Kabul and the U.S.-backed government fell in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath, anyone associated with the former Afghan government faces threats to their safety. Under Taliban rule, women’s rights to education, work, freedom of movement and representation are also incredibly restricted.

According to the Vermont branch of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), about 600 of the Afghans who have fled have resettled in Vermont.

At a press event held in Burlington on Monday, Amila Merdzanovic, USCRI Vermont field office director, said that every one of those people still have friends and family in Afghanistan.

“I would like all of us to take a moment and sit in silence,” Merdzanovic told attendees, “and remember those who are left behind in hope that they can be reunited with their families.”

As evacuations from Afghanistan continue — in some cases, aided by a retired Vermont judge — Vermont advocates are calling on the government to give green cards to Afghans who supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

Many who’ve already fled their home country for the United States did so under “humanitarian parole,” which does not provide a path to lawful immigration status.

Among the Afghans now living in Vermont are two of that country’s judges: Hamida Punjshiri and Anisa Rasooli. Punjshiri, who arrived only two weeks ago, is one of the senior members of the Afghan judiciary. Rasooli is the first woman to be nominated to the Afghan Supreme Court.

Rasooli said at the event Monday through an interpreter that Afghan judges are in serious danger, especially from the freed prisoners for whom they passed sentences. In some instances, she said, those freed prisoners are now high-ranking officials with the Taliban.

Rasooli called for the U.S. government to help evacuate the judges remaining in Afghanistan.

That kind of federal support, according to retired Vermont judge Patricia Whalen, was nowhere to be found following the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Whalen served both as a family court magistrate in Vermont as well as an international judge in the war crimes chamber in Sarajevo. She also was the director of the Vermont Afghan Women Judges Judicial Education project, a cross-cultural program that hosted dozens of Afghanistan’s judges in Vermont from 2004 and 2014.

And after one of those judges who visited Vermont was assassinated in 2021, Whalen says she and other judges across the world formed a committee dedicated to the security of Afghanistan’s women judges.

“No one wanted to leave Afghanistan, but they did say at one point … that if Kabul did fall, if the Taliban came back, would we help them evacuate? And of course, we said ‘Yes,’” Whalen said on Monday. “But like, trust me, we had no idea how to do that. I mean, absolutely no idea.”

Then the Taliban did capture Kabul. And Whalen said no one from the U.S. government was stepping in to get the judges out.

“The exception to this was Sen. Leahy’s office, who really helped us right from day one,” she said. “But mostly, to be honest, it was more encouragement.”

A 2022 U.S. State Department review of its actions during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul shows systematic breakdowns limiting its response to the crisis, including a “significant backlog in the Afghan SIV [Special Immigration Visas] process” under the Trump administration. That’s as the department commended the work its staff did to evacuate 125,000 people in two weeks.

To get out Afghanistan’s women judges, Whalen said she worked from her kitchen table and over the internet with her judicial colleagues. They raised money for 24/7 interpretation, set up a hotline and coordinated evacuations for 215 of the 254 judges — plus family members — who requested help.

“That’s over 1,000 people,” Whalen said. “We still have 39 judges in Afghanistan, and we will get them out.”

The remaining women judges in Afghanistan, she said, are surviving by living in hiding.

“There’s just a lot of really psychological damage that’s being currently done, and the longer they’re there, there’s more damage,” Whalen said.

Khalil Anwari, who is among the Afghans now living in Vermont and is a program manager for USCRI, said at the event Monday there’s legislation that can ease the immigration process. It’s called the Afghan Adjustment Act, and would give green cards to people who supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

“Thousands of Afghans who were evacuated to the U.S. are living in legal limbo,” Anwari said. “Their future is uncertain, their ability to plan for tomorrow constrained by a lack of permanent status.”

He added that these are people who risked their lives alongside the American forces in Afghanistan.

“They deserve our gratitude, but more so they deserve the security of knowing that they have a place in the U.S., a place where they can build their lives and contribute to the, to their communities,” Anwari said.

He also advocated for the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act and the Refugee Protection Act on Monday. Those bills would, among other things, shorten the waiting period for work authorization for asylees and cap the minimum number of refugees admitted into the U.S. in a given year to 125,000.

Anwari said these policies are about allowing refugees and immigrants to the United States to better rebuild their lives here — including contributing to the economy and social fabric of communities. This is something that Vermonters have supported generously in the past, according to Anwari and the other speakers at Monday’s event.

“A saying, an anecdote from the Afghan culture, it says, قطره، قطره دریا میشود, which roughly translates into, maybe, ‘Drop by drop a river is formed,’” Anwari said. “I have seen the embodiment of that saying in the actions and the collective actions of Vermonters.”

He added that while Vermont is a small state, it’s a strong thought leader in the country.

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