I am Mohammad Ismail, an Afghan citizen living in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the past 7 years. Currently, I am working as a Refugee Case Manager for Albuquerque Public Schools. I support Afghan refugee students, families and community to have a better transition to US educational system and provide access to local and national resources. I have alsoworked as an interpreter with the US coalition forces in Baghram detention facility for three and half years during Mission Freedom in Afghanistan. I provided language access to generals, colonels and interviewed Taliban prisoners. Due to this, I was granted a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) and I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in December 2013. Unfortunately, my family in Afghanistan became a point of target by theTaliban after my resettlement in US and had to leave everything behind to flee to the US due to safety. Fortunately, my family was accepted by United Nations refugee program and was resettled to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2016. My family and I have no peace of mind and have fear for family’s lives  in Kabul, Afghanistan.

I currently have family members and relatives in Afghanistan who fear for their lives and their loved ones every second due to the current conflict. I hear the horror stories first hand and I fear of losing loved ones and their voices. Especially being from an ethnic minority community (Hazara) of Afghanistan we faceextreme risk to our community.  The US forces withdrawal have caused chaos among people and motivated Taliban to fight against the government. Taliban, who were once in hiding high in mountains and caves now execute innocent people in the streets. 

���CALL FOR ACTION AND HELP ��� Sharmin Dharas and I have been working tirelessly along with US Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury and her office to try to get our families and communities out of Afghanistan. We have got confirmation that 1/107 on our list has received a flight and confirmation # to get out of Afghanistan.

*****They are not safe yet. We still have over 106+ people to go. We are urging all our friends and family to share this post and ask everyone to write to their congressional leaders to get the Joe Biden admin to work fast and deligently and get Afghani SIV and other Afghanis who have risked their lives to work for the US government. ***

Would like to give a big thank you to Jessica Jallings Gomez who covered our family and friends for the Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien regarding the Afghanistan situation. Thank you Jessica for literally getting on the next flight being here for less than 24 hours to make this story heard.

Matter of Fact Soledad O'Brien Jessica Jallings Gomez Mohammad Ali Shams Mehri Sahib Ahmadi Sulaiman Safar

Please save our families�