Thread by @jimsciutto

Two years ago today, the US announced the last C-17 carrying the last US forces had left Afghanistan. Today, many thousands of Afghans who served alongside the US and its allies remain behind. Listen to the harrowing & deeply frustrating story of just one family I know well. 1/

2/ I’m leaving out personal details for their safety but their story mirrors that of many others. I met them on a series of assignments in Afghanistan in the 2000s. They were full of hope the fall of the Taliban meant a new life, in school and at work and, for a time, it did.

3/ One family member, the father, worked for US forces in a frontline role. The pay and the sense of mission was life-changing. They believed it was also a two-way commitment - him to the US and the US to him. The dangers were, after all, very real.

4/ When the US announced its impending withdrawal, they became understandably nervous. Would the US-backed Afghan government survive? If not, would they have a way out? As US forces began the pullout and Taliban forces rapidly advanced, the answers became clearer to them.

5/ They were among hundreds of Afghans swarming Abbey Gate at Kabul airport in the final days before the withdrawal. The father waved his ID and papers to US soldiers, hoping one would see he had worked for the US and let them in. An impossible task for the soldiers of course.

6/ The mother was several months pregnant and too exhausted to stay in the crowd for too long. This might have saved their lives. They left only hours before the terrorist explosion that killed more than 100 Afghans and 13 US service-members.

7/ Over the ensuing days and weeks, many Afghan vets escaped through the heroic work of US veterans like Scott Mann (@RooftopLeader) of “Pineapple Express”, who marshaled resources inside and outside the country to ferry them out. But the window for this route was short and…

@RooftopLeader 8/ …and most Afghan vets, including my family, didn’t manage to book a ride out. This began the long process of applying for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) made available to Afghans who served US forces in certain roles and for a certain amount of time. They met the standard.

@RooftopLeader 9/ Gathering documents to prove they met the standard is another thing. Even with my help from the outside, it took weeks. Then, after they submitted the completed SIV application to State, it took months to simply receive word they were SIV eligible - not approved - eligible.

@RooftopLeader 10/ It was 2022, nearly a year since the withdrawal. What now? Getting an interview at a US embassy. There’s no longer a US embassy in Afghanistan of course so they must arrange one outside the country, usually, Qatar or Pakistan. Another wait &,
eventually, costly travel abroad.

@RooftopLeader 11/ We initially applied for them - with the help of an immigration lawyer in the US - in Qatar, which had proven a reliable path out. But the queue for SIV-eligible Afghans and their family members had by now grown well into the thousands. Flights out were managing, at best…

@RooftopLeader 12/ …a few hundred a week. At that rate, they would be waiting *years* to leave the country for their interview. Throughout, the father was living mostly in hiding. The Taliban was looking for him and he knew from contacts that they were killing many Afghan vets they found.

@RooftopLeader 13/ We made the decision to move their interview to the US embassy in Islamabad, where they could travel overland rather than by plane and where the wait for an interview might prove shorter. This was another weeks-long wait in a process that was stretching into it second year.

@RooftopLeader 14/ This of course requires a Pakistani visa which is an expensive and lengthy process of its own. Today, two years after the last US military jet left, they are still waiting for both the Pakistani visa and their interview appointment at the US embassy in Islamabad.

@RooftopLeader 15/ The father remains in hiding, fearing for his life. And remember: theirs is one story of many thousands involving Afghan vets now facing similar long waits and deep uncertainty.