Haseena Niazi had pinned her hopes on getting her fiancé out of Afghanistan on a rarely used immigration provision, humanitarian parole. The request was denied this month. “He had everything they wanted,” Niazi said. “It’s like a bad dream.”
“It was a huge disappointment,” said Caitlin Rowe, a Texas attorney who said she recently received five denials, including one for an Afghan police officer who helped train U.S. troops and was beaten by the Taliban. “These are vulnerable people who genuinely thought there was hope, and I don’t think there was.”
Palmer also stressed humanitarian parole is generally reserved for extreme emergencies and not intended to replace the refugee admissions process, “which is the typical pathway for individuals outside of the United States who have fled their country of origin and are seeking protection.”The U.S. government, meanwhile, continues to help vulnerable Afghans, evacuating more than 900 American citizens and residents and another 2,200 Afghans since the military withdrawal.
And while USCIS stressed that parole shouldn’t replace refugee processing, immigrant advocates argue that isn’t a viable option for Afghans stuck in their country due to a disability or hiding from the Taliban. Even those able to get out of Afghanistan, they say, may be forced to wait years in refugee camps, which isn’t something many can afford to do.
In some cases, it worked, and word spread among immigration attorneys that parole, while typically used in extreme emergencies, might be a way out, said Kyra Lilien, director of immigration legal services at Jewish Family & Community Services in California’s East Bay.When the U.S. immigration agency created a website specifically to address these applications, Lilien said she thought it was a sign of hope.
Wogai Mohmand, an attorney who helps lead the Afghan-focused Project ANAR, said that the group has filed thousands of applications and that since the U.S. troop withdrawal, has seen only denials. For Niazi’s fiancé, they had provided copies of written threats sent to the hospital where he works as a medical technician and threatening text messages he said came from Taliban members, she said. It wasn’t enough.
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