Two years after the fall of Kabul, Afghans’ wait for US visas continues

Afghans flee Taliban takeover in 2021; US sets up refugee programmes to help those at risk due to US affiliation. 150,000 applicants, only 6,862 admitted. Raids in Pakistan target Afghans with expired visas. US officials provide little info, leaving applicants in limbo, worried about future of their children.

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, Shukria Sediqi knew her days in safety were numbered. As a journalist who advocated for women's rights, she'd visited shelters and safe houses to talk to women who had fled abusive husbands. She went with them to court when they asked for a divorce.

According to the Taliban, who bar women from most public places, jobs and education, her work was immoral.

So when the Taliban swept into her hometown of Herat in western Afghanistan in August 2021 as the US was pulling out of the country, she and her family fled.

First they tried to get on one of the last American flights out of Kabul. Then they tried to go to Tajikistan but had no visas. Finally in October 2021, after sleeping outside for two nights at the checkpoint into Pakistan among crowds of Afghans fleeing the Taliban, she and her family made it into the neighbouring country.

The goal? Resettling in the US via an American government programme set up to help Afghans at risk under the Taliban because of their work with the U.S. government, media and aid agencies.

But two years after the US left Afghanistan, Sediqi and tens of thousands of others are still waiting. While there has been some recent progress, processing US visas for Afghans has moved painfully slowly. So far, only a small portion of Afghans have been resettled.

Many of the applicants who fled Afghanistan are running through savings, living in limbo in exile. They worry that the US, which had promised so much, has forgotten them.