Military

San Diego organization leads push to help Afghan refugees in limbo

Two executive orders signed by President Trump impact Afghan refugees, both in the U.S. and abroad. A San Diego-based organization is asking the administration to reconsider.

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For four years, Rahmat Mokhtar's mission was as a translator for U.S. Marines in Afghanistan. Now, he is a U.S. citizen, and his self-directed mission is to translate the stories of Afghan allies trying to make it to America.

Those efforts, he said, recently got more challenging and more urgent, because of an executive order suspending the Refugee Resettlement Program. Travel plans were halted for people who were already vetted and approved, including some 1600 Afghans.

"At the end, they keep the promise, they provided me the things that I deserved being in and I still value and appreciate," said Mokhtar, acknowledging friends and former colleagues may not be so lucky. “So definitely they feel rejected, they feel definitely betrayed.”

Another executive order, which has faced criticism for freezing foreign aid, also impacts resettlement agencies here in the U.S., by suspending federal funds that help new arrivals with housing and food.

“These are not people that are participating in illegal immigration. The SIV and the United States Refugee Admissions Program are the most secure, safe, legal immigration pathways,” said Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a San Diego-based coalition working to get people who helped the U.S. out of Afghanistan.

“These folks have been patiently waiting. They've been in hiding. Some of them have already been hunted down and killed because of their relationship to the United States of America, to people like me, to people like so many San Diegans who served in Afghanistan,” said VanDiver, a Navy veteran.

VanDiver said about half of the people they are seeking to bring to the U.S. have made it out. He is calling on the administration to carve out an exception for Afghan allies.

Mokhtar has friends among the 1600 Afghans who were set to come to the U.S. and whose plans are now in limbo. Among them, he said, is a family with a little girl, who they fear will be denied an education in Afghanistan.

“We'll see what happens next, right, so they're they're all waiting, they don't think this is the end. Still, they have some hope,” said Mokhtar.

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