Hi Everyone, Aysha and her family remain in hiding and in danger despite our best efforts. Aysha's father Muhammad, who is a former US military interpreter, nearly died of a combination of malaria and pneumonia earlier this year. He wan unable to be admitted to a hospital despite being comatose for days because he and his family are living in hiding in Pakistan. Thankfully he has recovered, but remains in critical danger from the Taliban as well as from the extreme stress and trauma of their living situation.
We recently connected with some refugee advocates in Canada who have had success in relocating refugees to Canada through private sponsorship and are helping us start a case to Canada for Aysha and her family. These Canadian advocates have successfully helped several refugees that had been previously denied by the US for “discretionary reasons” as Muhammad and family have been. Consequently, we are now working on a private sponsorship to Canada for Muhammad and family to Canada. Please consider donating to and/or sharing our Go Fund Me page to raise money for the sponsorship. You can also use Venmo to donate to username @SaveAysha.
Because of current policies in Canadian immigration, private sponsorship -- rather than the more traditional referral of refugees by the UN – is the only option for refugees residing in Pakistan. But private sponsorship requires that a year of living expenses be set aside for the refugee family in a private trust before the case is evaluated. We are in the process of writing the case for the family to go to Canada and will greatly appreciate any contributions to the needed funds. There is no filing fee for refugee cases to Canada, and all the funds will be returned if the family is able to immigrate elsewhere and the Canada case is withdrawn. Thus, if things change and the US refugee case is approved, the donations for the Canada case will be used to help Aysha and her family resettle in the US.
Over the last couple of years, my family and I have made many trips to Washington, D.C. and met with members of Congress and their staff (pre-pandemic). The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continues to stonewall Congress and renege on sworn testimony to Congress by DHS and USCIS leaders in oversight hearings, where DHS officials said that they would cooperate with Congress’s requests for information on why the case was denied.
In recent weeks, the House Judiciary Committee has made some progress on getting information since they got USCIS to agree to agree to give a briefing on the matter, supposedly in the next couple of weeks, to a few Congressional offices. However, this briefing will not be classified, and USCIS has told Judiciary Committee that the full reasoning for why the case was denied is classified. This is progress since USCIS hadn’t told Congress anything at all for over two years. However, a classified briefing will still be needed, and USCIS is still not cooperating with that request.
We are working with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s office as well as with House Judiciary Committee on the case, but we have not yet found a Republican Senator to help with the case. If one or both of your Senators are Republicans and you’d be willing to contact them and ask them to help, please email me at save.aysha (at) gmail.com.
As long as the Trump Administration is in power, it will remain very difficult to advocate for refugees in the US. In fact, admissions of US military interpreters as refugees dropped 99.7% from 2015 to 2018, according to data that Congress obtained from USCIS at my family’s and my urging.
Consequently, we are working on all viable options to save Aysha and her family and are thus pursuing both a refugee case with Canada and an ongoing effort in Washington, D.C. to get the US case reviewed by members of Congress. Thank you for your support in helping to save this family.
Best,
Kristy