Here & Now

Afghan Refugees Embark Upon New Lives in Wisconsin

Frederica Freyberg:

The emergency evacuation in Afghanistan last August airlifted more than 120,000 people. 13,000 came to Fort McCoy near Tomah. And now hundreds of families are settling in, calling Wisconsin their new permanent home. But there is still an uphill climb to find housing, navigate the immigration system, and sort through the trauma of leaving their home to the hands of the Taliban. Marisa Wojcik reports.

Johnny:

It’s just like completely shocking. It’s just like, oh, my God, I was never expecting this, and it just happened all of the sudden.

Khalid:

When I saw the news, I’m so upset, I am so sad.

Grant Sovern:

People saw chaos and it was awful, the way that the United States had to leave.

Sher Khan:

Everybody just tried to escape because they want to survive.

Mary Flynn:

Basically the Taliban had overrun the city and the airport. To me, it was like Kabul fell.

Marisa Wojcik:

Images of crowds of people outside the Kabul airport, waiting on tarmacs, and being packed into military planes saturated screens around the world as the United States frantically evacuated people out of Afghanistan in August of 2021 and the Taliban seized power.

Sher Khan:

Everyone who doesn’t think like them is an enemy to Taliban. And you can get killed for the basic reason as being — as living in Kabul.

Marisa Wojcik:

Sher Khan, a journalist, was evacuated from Kabul with his wife and children last year and they reached Fort McCoy in September. Now, with the Taliban in power, many have lost hope for those they left behind in Afghanistan.

Johnny:

I was hoping that I get graduated and then go back home so I could surprise my family. But that never happened.

Marisa Wojcik:

This is Johnny. He came to the United States in 2014 on a special immigrant visa, or SIV, for work he did to help the United States military.

Johnny:

I was receiving threats, you know, like text messages and then phone calls while I was working with the U.S. Marines. I decided not to stick around anymore and just move to the U.S.

Marisa Wojcik:

His identity is being protected because he fears his family still in Afghanistan will be targeted. His family tried but they were unable to make it into the Kabul airport.

Johnny:

The day the explosion happened, they left 30 minutes before. Can you imagine if they were there, like, you could have lost the entire family.

Marisa Wojcik:

For many families, it’s a similar story.

Khalid:

I am concerned about my two brothers. They worked with the military.

Marisa Wojcik:

Khalid came to Wisconsin in 2017, after receiving threats for his work with the U.S. Two of his brothers are currently being targeted by the Taliban. They, too, were unsuccessful getting into the Kabul airport.

Khalid:

They punish them, go away from airport. They hit him by the gun and they broken his arm.

Marisa Wojcik:

Now, his brothers have fled central Kabul for safety, only visiting their families under the cover of darkness.

Mary Flynn:

Neighbors are being threatened by the Taliban because they lived next door to someone that is known to have worked for the U.S. or a U.S. company. Just proximity could put you in danger.

Khalid:

The new generation, they hope for the future, but now they don’t have hope for the future.

Sher Khan:

There is no hope of future for the people. If I let — for example, even if Taliban didn’t kill me, if, for example, my children would not get the chance to get education. And I don’t want to see that. I would have done everything I could to provide my children to get their education because I don’t want my children to be extremists. I don’t want my children to be fundamentalists. I want my children to do something to make a positive difference in other people’s life. That’s what they are supposed to do.

Johnny:

In terms of money, in terms of jobs, in terms of, you know, economy, in terms of, you know, how people are, you know, escaping the country and there’s no education, it’s just like so many different things.

Marisa Wojcik:

With Kabul’s airport shut down, the only way out for Johnny’s family is to flee to a neighboring country. A journey his young sisters cannot weather.

Johnny:

Those little girls won’t be able to walk for 20 and 25 days in a row. That’s just impossible to just get to another country. Because there’s no flights. There’s no transportation, and they don’t have the documentation. I am really hoping that someone will see and hear my voice and do something about it, you know, like we were promised that we will be saved and our family will be saved.

Grant Sovern:

Honestly, when we’re at Fort McCoy talking with people about their own asylum case, their own SIV or way to stay in the U.S., they almost always start out with the most important thing to me is what can I do for my family or my friends or my colleagues who are still in Afghanistan, and they’re deathly afraid, for good reason, what could happen to them.

Marisa Wojcik:

Grant Sovern is an immigration attorney in Madison.

Grant Sovern:

So what we realized about two months into everybody being here is, they’re going to have to apply for asylum like everybody else does who is afraid to go back home.

Marisa Wojcik:

While many people qualified for special immigrant visas, at least half were designated with something called parole status. Sovern helped with legal orientation efforts at Fort McCoy, running clinics to help people start to think about the asylum application process.

Grant Sovern:

We all assume you can get asylum because your country is falling apart, and that is not what asylum is about. You have to show that you will be — you specifically will be singled out because of one of these grounds. So it’s a long process.

Marisa Wojcik:

For Sovern, who’s been doing pro bono immigration work for years, there’s been a lack of legal resources long before this.

Grant Sovern:

But this is certainly the most acute and the largest number of problems for the resources that we already don’t have. And a timeline that has to be achieved otherwise, we could be sending people back to Afghanistan.

Marisa Wojcik:

He says anyone with this parole status has one year upon entering the United States to file their application and two years to be approved. But they need a permanent address first.

Mary Flynn:

Right now, we are just all scrambling with the surge. We can’t even do anything else.

Marisa Wojcik:

Mary Flynn is a program manager for Lutheran Social Services Refugee Resettlement, handling cases in the Milwaukee area. Agencies help with a long list of items, but most important and desperately needed is affordable housing.

Mary Flynn:

The increase in prices are making it more difficult because we always want to have them be self-sufficient. The dignity and respect of learning life in America and doing well. We want them to do well.

Marisa Wojcik:

Johnny says Wisconsin is a good place for refugees to resettle.

Johnny:

I love cheese, and I’m turning to something more like a Wisconsin person. I really don’t like the cold, but beside that, I love Wisconsin.

Marisa Wojcik:

Now, Johnny and Khalid are helping out as translators for newly arrived families.

Johnny:

I’m not done with serving, and I really want to be somewhere so I can be proud of my family and both of my countries.

Khalid:

I help as a volunteer because our Afghan culture. When you are an Afghan somewhere, they will need help, you have to help.

Marisa Wojcik:

As local organizations work to resettle more and more people, they’re hoping communities will step up and help with resources.

Grant Sovern:

I think it’s a real opportunity for all of us to practice the welcome that really is Wisconsin. But the welcome also includes, you know, providing a safe community where they can live, and right now, it means finding other ways to help their local refugee resettlement agencies are needing places for them to stay, are needing clothing and kitchen supplies and school supplies for kids when they’ll go to school. But they also need legal support. And I think, you know, I would count them as lucky if they ended up in Wisconsin because I think there are a lot of people who believe in that kind of thing, and I think people will step up and help.

Mary Flynn:

I think that we always have to remember that this could be us. And when you think of it that way, you see the importance of being kind and compassionate and making them feel welcome like you’d like to be.

Sher Khan:

Bringing this amount of people from one side of the world to the other side of the world and giving them all the things they need, that is just beyond my imagination. I can’t even like, I mean, sometimes I feel like I’m dreaming. Whatever we receive here, we are thankful for.

Marisa Wojcik:

Reporting for “Here & Now,” I’m Marisa Wojcik.

Frederica Freyberg:

Journalist Sher Khan and his wife and children are being resettled in Massachusetts and he hopes to soon get back to his passion of journalism.