3 years later, America still owes Afghans a huge debt

I gawk in disbelief at the dashboard’s reading: 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

After a nearly four-hour journey from my hometown of San Diego, I pull up to a neatly kept driveway in Mojave, Calif., and am immediately greeted by the rosy-cheeked faces of children playing in the shade of the community leasing office building. “Hello, how are you?” they say to me in their native Farsi as their faces light up.

Nestled in the back roads of the vast desert terrain home to less than 4,000 people lies a mobile home community where dozens of Afghan families are living while seeking asylum in the U.S. Having trekked through 11 Latin American countries in search of safety, these families found home and shelter in one of America’s most unforgiving climates, the Mojave Desert.

Three years after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 15 of 2021, an unexpectedly growing community of Afghans in Mojave serves as a grim and constant reminder of our overdue promises to our Afghan allies. From Special Immigrant Visa-eligible translators for the American military to teachers, NGO workers and Afghan government employees, these families clung to a sense of hope that the U.S. would maintain its commitment to the evacuation and relocation of their allies.

In the end, no help ever came. So they helped themselves and their families by seeking asylum at our southern border.

In a country that’s been grappling with an economic and humanitarian crisis that puts approximately 28 million Afghans in need of humanitarian assistance, with 3 million children suffering from acute malnutrition, remaining in Afghanistan was not an option for the families in Mojave. Deteriorating security, threats to their safety and lack of economic and education opportunities for their wives and daughters forced upon these families the difficult decision to embark on perilous journeys to seek safety in the U.S.

With severe backlogs prohibiting efficient visa processing and restricted legal pathways remaining for Afghans, these families now find themselves facing deep bureaucratic immigration backlogs, barriers to access and even prolonged detention in ICE prisons.

Today, the Taliban’s targeted attacks, forced disappearances, killings and arbitrary detention of human rights activists, journalists and members of ethnic minority groups are a sign of the regime’s extension of its brutal rule. Yet little has been done by the U.S. to reckon with and account for its responsibility in fostering the current crisis in Afghanistan.

For the Afghan American community, this has meant picking up the pieces when our elected leaders have failed to uphold their commitment to those who stood by its mission in Afghanistan. And despite an unwavering commitment to welcome more than 160,000 new Afghans to the U.S., only policymakers in Washington, D.C., can ensure America pays the deep debt it owes to Afghans and Afghan Americans.

Top of mind for tens of thousands of newly arrived community members in this country is Congress’s failure to pass the Fulfilling Promises to Afghan Allies Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that would allow a pathway to permanent legal status for Afghan allies while also allowing those left behind a chance to seek refuge here. Nine out of 10 Americans support this critical piece of legislation, according to a poll from late last year, as Americans said they find it important that America “keep its pledge” in the closing chapter of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

In the dimmed light of the community leasing office, the blistering outdoor heat and broken AC turn the quaint 500-square-foot space into a headache-inducing sauna. Surrounded by eager children hoping to take home one of the soccer ball donations I brought with me, I do my best to quell their excitement while attempting to assuage the anxiety of their parents as they ask me for referrals to legal resources. I explain what I can and promise to follow up with additional information. I sense their slight disappointment as I begin to say my goodbyes and announce my departure.

For the foreseeable future, these families will have to make do with the blistering heat and the few resources the town has to offer due to their lack of legal status and access to services and benefits. As I make my way out of the leasing office, a volunteer stops me to inform me that three more families will be soon calling Mojave home in the coming week. She asks me when I’ll be back to welcome the new families and I tell her soon. I know that as long as America continues to fail to fulfill its promise to our Afghan allies, organizers like myself will continue to take the brunt of responsibility to help our Afghan communities in need, no matter where they set their roots.

Mursel Sabir is the project coordinator for the grassroots community and advocacy organization Afghans For A Better Tomorrow.