Hi Everyone, Thank you to all of you who donated to and/or shared our Go Fund Me for the Canada case for the Kamran family. We have raised over $3,250 so far. https://www.gofundme.com/f/rescue-afghan-interpreter-and-family-from-taliban

So we still have a ways to go to have enough funds for the case to be evaluated. But we appreciate all of your generosity and the great start to the fundraising for a refugee case to Canada for the Kamran family! (Due to current Canadian policy, the only option for getting the family to Canada is to do a private sponsorship.)

After USCIS stonewalled Congress for two years, they finally gave a non-secure, staff-level briefing to several offices early in September about the family’s case and the general issue of delays and denials of US military interpreters’ asylum cases. However, since it was not a secure briefing, they couldn’t actually discuss the reason for denying the case. USCIS did of course tell Congress that they wouldn’t have denied the case without a good reason, and they claimed to have never denied the children independently of Muhammad. But USCIS is now denying over 90% of US military interpreters who apply as refugees. With such absurdly high denial rates we know that they are denying a lot of cases that they shouldn’t be denying. And we have it in writing from USCIS 3 years ago that they were also denying the children independently of Muhammad because their security concerns also applied to the children. The several House offices working on the case have requested a secure, in-person briefing from USCIS. But because of COVID concerns it is not clear when that could happen.

So while we are continuing to try to work with Congress to review this case, we are also working to finish the Canada case as soon as possible to have a back-up plan.

Muhammad also recently did an interview with a radio host. As soon as it is available I will share that for anyone interested in hearing his story in his own words!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out to me at save (dot) aysha (at) gmail.com.

Thanks,

Kristy