Unsettled: the Afghan refugee crisis collides with the American housing disaster

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        Unsettled: the Afghan refugee crisis collides with the American housing disaster
        
            
        
    
    
        By: Makena Kelly
        Photos: Marissa Leshnov
        
    
    
        6.29.22
        The Afghan refugee crisis collides with the American housing disaster
    


    



    





        	
	
	
		The
		Abdils
		decided
			
		Afghanistan
		was
		no
		longer
		safe
		after
		their
		14-year-old
		son,
		Abdul-Azim,
		was
		kidnapped
		on
		his
		way
		home
		from
		school.
		For
		years,
		the
		Taliban
		abducted
		children
		for
		ransom
		or
		used
		them
		as
		leverage
		in
		negotiating
		with
		the
		Afghan
		police.
		As
		much
		as
		it
		pained
		them
		to
		abandon
		their
		son,
		Fazela
		and
		Hakeem
		Abdil
		had
		other
		children
		—
		two
		teenage
		daughters
		—
		to
		think
		about.
		They
		were
		faced
		with
		a
		difficult
		choice:
		stay
		in
		an
		increasingly
		dangerous
		Afghanistan
		or
		leave
		their
		home
		forever.

Up until then, things had been peaceful for the Abdils. “We had a well-arranged life. We had work, a house. Life was pretty comfortable,” Hakeem says. But conditions in Kabul had grown worse when many assumed they’d get better. In February 2020, the Trump administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban, promising to withdraw all troops within 14 months so long as it abstained from attacking US soldiers. The violence did not end and, in fact, became more pronounced.

So the Abdils made the painful decision to flee, knowing that they would be leaving Abdul-Azim behind.

If the decision to leave is complicated, it is followed by the equally convoluted, bureaucratic process of emigrating. Hurriedly, the Abdils fled to Tajikistan where they awaited visas into Ukraine. Then they began a process to enter the US. After working alongside the Americans for nearly a decade in logistics and transport, Fazela qualified for a Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, granting her and her family permanent safety in the States. The SIV can be read two ways: as a reward for aiding American forces or an acknowledgment that helping the US can put an Afghan’s life in peril.

That process left them in nearly two years of limbo. But, last December, the Abdils finally arrived in California. From the airport, they were transported to a mosque near Union City, where they slept on floor mats for one night, shielded by a single curtain. Without any money to spend on Ubers or bus passes, the family walked an hour and 40 minutes to a local nonprofit, the Afghan Coalition, to begin the process of resettlement.

https://www.theverge.com/c/23170906/homeland-unsettled-afghan-refugee-crisis-housing-bay-area

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