Stranded Afghan and Iraqi interpreters who aided U.S. military look for hope in a Biden admin

More than 1,000 Iraqis and Afghans who assisted the U.S. military as interpreters and in other roles but whose applications to resettle in the U.S. due to what advocacy groups have previously called “endless red tape, slashed refugee admissions, and new ‘extreme vetting’ measures” have signed a petition urging President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to remember their cases.

“I am so scared cant go any where even when i am going to my work place i feel today is my last day because every day target killing is going on,” Khaliqdad H., from Afghanistan, wrote according to The Washington Post. “help me please go get out of this place. help me please.” He represents just one of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans, and their families stuck in a backlog—and stranded in ongoing danger.

The New York Times reported in October that one Iraqi man who was shot at and had his home bombed by a militia group after he served as a translator for the U.S. military has been “waiting to clear security checks even after he was told to prepare to travel to the United States in 2017.” Former Army Capt. Allen Vaught, who was assisted by “Sam,” said in the report that “[a]nyone who worked with U.S. forces had a scarlet letter. They had a mark on their head. And the way they killed them was gruesome. One of my translators was burned alive.”

For some, signing the petition to Biden and Harris is a risky act itself. Mohammad F., an interpreter in Afghanistan, included “his visa application case number, details that could put him at additional risk of retribution from the Taliban,” The Post reported. In his message to the incoming administration, he wrote: “Mr. President-elect Joe Biden; We helped you achieve your mission, now you help us we get to safty. Thank you very much.” Abdullah A., from Iraq, wrote: “I was sufferd to much from being Interputer with the US army ( and my family ).”

The Post estimates the number of Iraqis stuck in the backlog to be about 100,000, with the Times putting that number at about 110,000. Seventy-thousand Afghans and their families are also waiting. Zia Ghafoori, Interpreting Freedom Foundation refugee agency leader and former interpreter who came to the U.S. in 2014, said people he served alongside are still waiting for their paperwork. “I know a lot of interpreters that they worked with me still they have not received their visas and of course their lives are under threat every single second,” he told the Post.

The Trump administration’s top anti-immigrant toady, White House aide and noted white supremacist Stephen Miller, has slashed refugees admissions to the U.S. in the next fiscal year to the lowest in the refugee program’s history, from an average of 95,000 pre-Trump to just 15,000 (a number that it’s not obligated to reach either). But refugees are now holding out hope following Biden’s victory in November after the president-elect pledged to set an annual refugee target of 125,000, higher than a 110,000 goal set by former President Barack Obama.

”Biden has not specified plans for the Afghan and Iraqi programs, but Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee to become secretary of state, has promised to expand them,” the Post continued. Restoring policies like refugee admissions will require a reconstruction of refugee agencies that have for years worked with the government to resettle families but were then decimated by the Trump administration. But it is possible to rebuild if there is a true commitment.

“The program that this incoming administration is inheriting is on its last breath,” Refugee Council USA Director of Policy and Practice Danielle Grigsby told CNN earlier this month. “It’s going to require both political will and an early investment in overturning policies to see the program begin to operate as it can and is intended to.”