The Bureaucratic Nightmare Facing the Afghans Who Escaped – By Mary Harris (Slate) / Oct 26 2021
Sharifa Abbasi is an immigration lawyer based in Virginia. Three days a week, she drives deep into a military base in Quantico, the area known as the “crossroads of the Marines corps.” But it’s not the soldiers Abbasi is there to see—it’s the refugees. Hundreds of them, all from Afghanistan, trying to figure out where they’ll go next. When Abbasi saw pictures of planes full of desperate Afghans fleeing their country, she had a realization: When those planes landed, it was going to create a logistical nightmare. So she got a job as the “legal lead” at Quantico. Now, she spends the bulk of her work week translating the vagaries of U.S. immigration law into Dari. On Tuesday’s episode of What Next, I spoke with Abbasi about the tens of thousands of Afghans now living in the U.S.—but still struggling. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mary Harris: When did you decide you needed to start volunteering with people coming into this country, like how did you begin to do that?
Sharifa Abbasi: I mean, right away. I felt like I had to do something in one capacity or another. I just I had to get involved. If I couldn’t help at this point in time with the skills I’ve gained from my experiences and then when would I ever use them? I couldn’t just sit back and not do anything.
You heard about thousands of Afghans being held temporarily at a convention center in Virginia after they touched down. This became a place for Afghan Americans to rally around the refugees, supporting them with food, donations, and legal help. So you went.
It was just overwhelming. It has a lot of people coming in at once, trying to figure out what the process is. Mainly, they were just getting registered there. They’re spending a couple of hours to maybe a night or two nights there until they were able to find transportation to get moved to the next step in the process, which is the military bases.
