Afghan interpreter finally on safe ground

The four-year journey of Qismat Amin to reach U.S. soil finally ended on the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 8, after Department of Homeland Security officials accepted his visa at San Francisco International Airport.

Amin, an Afghan native who spent four years as an interpreter for the U.S. Army in the Tora Bora region, was questioned for more than two hours by authorities after exiting his Air India flight from Delhi at 6:12 a.m. Awaiting his release was his friend Matthew Ball, a U.S Army captain for whom he interpreted in Afghanistan; Ball’s wife, Giselle Rahn; an immigration attorney and nearly two dozen well-wishers, some of whom had read about his plight. It was a welcome that Amin could not have imagined, he said.

“Thank you so much for your support and for fighting for immigrants. Thank you, America!” the exhausted but jubilant new immigrant said.

Amin was just 19 years old when he met Ball and became his interpreter, translating not only language but also the culture of powerful elders with whom the Americans were collaborating against the Taliban. The two men worked together for a year before Ball ended his tour of duty (followed by two additional tours in Afghanistan and a fourth in Turkey). They kept in touch by phone and text messaging, but they have not seen each other for five years, Ball said.

In 2012, Amin realized he was not safe in his country. He had been on television as a translator for officials and the Taliban were looking for him. He applied for a special immigrant visa, but the process was painstakingly slow. Without a job and in virtual house arrest, Amin kept hoping to escape. Taliban fighters even held his aunt and uncle’s crops for ransom in an effort to find out where he was.

Ball, a second-year Stanford Law School student, and Rahn worked to expedite the paperwork: he and fellow students filed petitions to try to expedite the process and got 12 members of Congress to write letters of inquiry; Rahn set up a GoFundMe page to help fund Amin’s plane ticket and other needs.

Meanwhile, the situation was becoming increasingly desperate, Amin said.

“I don’t want to get killed. I was scared. The place where I lived, Shinwar, is the first place where ISIS (Islamic State) emerged (when they came to the country). The day I was coming to Kabul on my way to Delhi for the flight, my aunt’s husband was kidnapped by ISIS and they took him away. His son was in the army,” Amin said.

Amin said he had never been in a plane, but when the flight took off, “I felt so relaxed and out of the pressure. I was going to be in the safest country on the planet.

“I have a little family in Afghanistan. When you leave your family, it is very sad. The last few days I was so scared, I didn’t want anyone to know I had the visa. (But now) I’m going to have a safe life. I’m where I can have a safe life. I’m very happy,” he said.

Afghanistan is not one of the seven countries deemed a terrorist threat under President Donald Trump’s executive order. But Amin said the travel ban came just as he was receiving his visa, and he was concerned he might be blocked from entering the country.

“It was very disappointing after working through the lengthy process,” he said.

Chelsea HaleyNelson, an immigration attorney, was at the airport to help Amin in case of a delay, even though a federal judge put the ban on hold last week. While the ban was in effect HaleyNelson said she saw cases where people were held in detention. In one, a woman’s fiance was taken to a county jail to be processed. In another, an elderly woman from Iran with a health issue was not allowed to have ambulance personnel attend to her.

“They were going to send her back. She was on a plane and she started to have chest pains. Under pressure, she was finally taken off the plane and taken to an ambulance. Later (officials) released her,” HaleyNelson said.

Special immigrant visas, or SIVs, such as Amin’s, are reserved for individuals who have assisted the U.S. government in some way and who are in danger. They can take years to process, she said. When SIV holders arrive on U.S. soil, they get extra questioning and they might be pulled in for secondary questions, she said.

Samson Schatz, a second-year Stanford Law student who helped work on facilitating Amin’s paperwork, said he has worked with the lawyer-based International Refugee Assistance Project, which has put pressure on foot-dragging agencies to expedite visas. Seeing Amin enter the U.S. is a rare opportunity for students like himself, he said.

“Students don’t get to see the cases through” before graduating, he said.

Schatz does not agree with the argument that a ban is needed to keep out possible terrorists.

“The process is already extremely long and rigorous,” he said. “I don’t know how it could be more rigorous.”

Quinn Jacobson and his wife, Lindsay, came from Sunnyvale to support Amin during his arrival, having heard about it through Facebook. Jacobson said he has many concerns about anti-foreigner and anti-immigrant sentiments.

“My grandmother escaped the concentration camps in the late ’30s to come here, so picking out one group and attacking them brings out a lot of strong emotions,” he said.

While there is always a concern that a terrorist could slip through, “That’s why we have a system to interview and vet everyone who comes in,” he said.

“I don’t see the recent actions focusing on actual threats; it’s playing on an unfortunate emotional appeal that’s counterproductive. If we want to improve screening, we can improve screening. If you were going to go on the historical facts of terrorist threats in this country, it wouldn’t be Syria, it would be Saudi Arabia,” he said.

Amin’s well-wishers held hand-painted American flags and brightly painted “Welcome to America” signs. Palo Alto’s Ohlone Elementary School fourth- and fifth-graders in teacher Windy Orviss’ class made the signs, Rahn said.

Kaye Storm, a Palo Alto resident with no connection to Amin, held a sign in black ink on a white background.

“Hopefully it says ‘welcome’ in Arabic — if you can believe Google Translate,” she said.

“I was looking for ways to alleviate my despair” over the country’s political direction, she said of why she went to the airport. “I think our fear is blinding us to issues of justice and fairness, particularly with these translators who have put their lives on the line. What more proof do we need that that they should be protected?”

Ball and Rahn said they are excited that Amin has finally arrived. They plan to make him comfortable at their home and to help him with the adjustment to his new country.

Amin, looking at the crowd of well-wishers, said he feels like he has a big family now.

“I don’t know how to return this favor,” he said of Ball. “He has been fighting so hard for me.

“I’m so excited. Right now I’m going to get some food and some sleep. I’m going to go outside and see America.”

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