Afghan family with six kids needs our help

Hi, my name is Heather, and my family lives in Austin, Texas. We have chosen to serve as sponsor for an Afghan family who need to come to the US on humanitarian parole. Humanitarian parole is a program that brings refugees to the US immediately so that they can wait safely for their visas to be processed. Many people don't realize that visa processing, even for "special" or "emergency" visas, is a process that can take years. The family that we are seeking to sponsor are applicants for the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa, which is for Afghans who worked for the US or US institutions. They have no idea when their visa for the US will be approved. While they are waiting, this is their situation: the dad of this family, Hasibullah (a pseudonym), who used to work on a US military base, fled Afghanistan several months ago to protect his family from the threats against his life. This means that his wife and his six younger children (five of whom are under the age of eighteen) are currently alone in Kabul with no income. According to Afghan custom, this means that his 22-year-old son, Mohammed (also a pseudonym), who was a college student a few months ago, is now responsible for protecting and supporting the family in the dangerous and hopeless landscape of Taliban-controlled Kabul. This is not what Hasibullah wanted for his son— as someone who had to sacrifice his dreams of education because of the lack of opportunities available for him, his only wish is for his children to be educated as he was not. My sister Kristin taught English to Mohammed over the course of a year and a half at the American University of Afghanistan, where he was a student. She vividly remembers him telling her, during one of the frequent afternoons when he would come to her office for conversation, how his father had taught him to save every scrap of paper because the written word was so precious and paper was scarce. Now Mohammed and his younger siblings face a terribly uncertain future.

 

We've agreed to sponsor this family if they can escape Afghanistan, but the application fee for each individual is $575. I know some of you have already given money to help families in Afghanistan (thank you!!) but if you haven’t and would like to support this family in their desperate mission to be reunited in the US to safely await their visas, please consider donating here. If you are involved with an organization that could help support this family or others like them, please contact me directly.