“We are supposed to be gathering supporting documents, but there is some inadequacy because the family left Afghanistan under emergency evacuation efforts in the summer ,” Kutty said. Ahmed Kutty, a Peterborough resident and a volunteer with the Team Monadnock Neighborhood Support Team for Afghan Resettlement, a local group that works alongside Ascentria Care Alliance to help refugees in the area, Mashwani and his family qualify for Special Immigrant Visa status. Our original parole is due to expire in November this year.”Īccording to Dr. With the re-parole application, our case will go forward. The ability to apply for re-parole “is good for us,” Mashwani said. Citizenship and Immigration Services website states. government a means to qualify for permanent residency, also known as a Green Card, the U.S. Special Immigrant Visas were introduced in 2009 under the Afghan Allies Protection Act to give those “faithful and valuable” to the U.S. Parole is different from the Special Immigrant Visa granted to Afghans who assisted the American military in some capacity during the war in Afghanistan. temporarily, it does not guarantee a pathway to immigration, according to U.S. They all came under the parole program,” said Lina Shayo, an immigration attorney with Manchester-based Mesa Law who is handling Mashwani’s case.Īlthough parole grants people with ”urgent humanitarian reasons” the ability to live and work in the U.S. “When the fall of Kabul happened in 2021, many Afghans fleeing the Taliban came to the United States. While re-parole would extend temporary status to evacuees like Mashwani and his family, the absence of a clear pathway to permanent residency or citizenship leaves them without any long-term solution. “, Biden is doing something, which is good for us,” Mashwani said, of the Biden administration’s announcement on May 5 that it was establishing a process to allow Afghan evacuees to apply for re-parole starting this month. Most of these 88,000 evacuees, including Mashwani, came to America through the humanitarian parole process, which grants temporary legal status for two years from the date of entry. The United States’ chaotic exit from Afghanistan in August 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, left almost 3.2 million Afghans displaced from their homes, and nearly 88,000 were resettled in the U.S, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security. He first arrived at Fort Pickett in Virginia with his wife and young son, and has been living in Keene since March 2022. My son is getting a great education here, and he will learn good English,” said Mashwani, who fled Afghanistan in the fall of 2021, soon after U.S. under the humanitarian parole authority, which granted them a temporary stay in the U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021, Sher Alam Mashwani's family came to the U.S. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.Īfter the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. This story was originally produced by the Keene Sentinel.

Sentinel source keene nh