Afghanistan is a US election issue. Will its refugees’ voices be heard?

Washington, DC – Nasrin will not be able to vote in the United States elections in November.

Still, the 27-year-old has a message for the presidential candidates, on behalf of Afghans like herself who fled as the US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in August 2021.

“I really want them to hear us, especially to hear those voices that worked for the US,” Nasrin, who asked to use a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera.

Friday marks three years since the last American soldiers left Afghanistan, ending a two-decade military presence that began with the toppling of the Taliban government in 2001.

But the chaotic nature of the military withdrawal — and the swift reestablishment of Taliban rule — have cast a long shadow over US politics.

A source of ongoing bipartisan criticism, the withdrawal has become a prominent talking point in the 2024 presidential race, with Democrats and Republicans exchanging blame for the lives lost during the troops’ departure.

But Afghans like Nasrin say there is an important perspective lost in the election-year sparring: theirs.

“This election is not only important for America. It’s also important for Afghans,” said Nasrin, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

“For Afghans who immigrated here and for Afghans in Afghanistan … especially the women, this election will have a huge impact.”

A 2021 protest in Los Angeles called for an ‘open door’ policy for Afghan evacuees and expedited processing of immigration cases [File: Ringo HW Chiu/Reuters]

Two parties, one controversy

What happened in 2021 is a story that embroils the central players in this year’s presidential race.

In 2020, the administration of Republican President Donald Trump reached a controversial agreement with the Taliban to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan within 14 months.

A few months later, Trump lost his bid for re-election. His successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, oversaw a mad-dash evacuation of US citizens, coalition allies and tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans as the deadline loomed.

By August 2021, the Taliban had swept across the country in a lightning offensive, reclaiming its former power. Its forces entered the Afghan capital Kabul on August 15. The last US plane flew out of the city on August 30.

In those final days, a bomb attack killed about 170 Afghans hoping to enter the airport, as well as 13 members of the US military.

Government investigators have blamed the administrations of both Biden and Trump for the chaotic situation: Trump for reaching an agreement seen as favouring the Taliban and Biden for moving forward with the plan without putting in safeguards to stop the Taliban.

Trump has also faced criticism for limiting the pathways for Afghans to escape to the US.

He is now, once again, the Republican candidate for president. Meanwhile, Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, is heading the Democratic ticket.

A lingering failure

But advocates say both parties must still confront an enduring dilemma: how to protect the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who fear repression under the Taliban.

Many who were left behind are considered likely targets for the Taliban, especially if they worked for the US military or the US-backed government.

Even among those who were evacuated, many have been left in perpetual uncertainty, with no clear path to US residency or citizenship. Others have found the legal pathways to the US too narrow and have sought more dangerous routes to enter the country.

For her part, Nasrin said she worked as an interpreter for the US embassy in Kabul.

After fleeing, she was able to become a US resident through a “Special Immigrant Visa” (SIV) programme designated for Afghans who worked for the US government.

Another evacuee, who asked to be identified only as Nazanin, fled Kabul on an evacuation flight with her 16-year-old sister following the Taliban’s rise.

She has since been granted asylum in the US, but she said she sees only broken promises from both parties as many other Afghans both in the US and in Afghanistan have been left in the lurch.

“I don’t think Afghan voices are being heard by politicians,” she told Al Jazeera.

“My message to the presidential candidates is that you do not represent the majority of the refugee society or Americans that I know or see their perspective on social media platforms and that your false promises are noted.”

Inadequate immigration pathways

Arash Azizzada — the executive director of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, an advocacy group — said members of the Afghan community in the US, like him, feel a “sense of anger and disappointment” this election season “when we look at both candidates”.

“We are feeling pretty invisible this election season,” he added.

Azizzada’s group has spent the last three years pushing for more immigration pathways for those fleeing the Taliban, including an increase in special visas for Afghans who worked directly with the US and pathways to permanent residency for other evacuees.

But little progress has been made, Azizzada explained.

“It has been the hallmark of Biden’s presidency to consider anything related to Afghanistan radioactive,” Azizzada said. “And Democrats have gone through this election season with barely any mention of Afghanistan or the Afghan people.”

That includes not mentioning the 160,000 Afghans who have been successfully relocated to the US since the withdrawal, something Azizzada argues could be framed as a victory for Democrats.

The Biden administration has upscaled the processing of Special Immigrant Visa applications, which had all but ground to a halt under Trump.

Still, as of March, 60,230 applicants had submitted all the required paperwork and were awaiting initial approval to move ahead with the process, according to the US State Department. Another 75,000 were also in the process of applying.

The administration has also increased refugee processing for Afghans, with 11,168 refugees admitted so far in fiscal year 2024. That is up from approximately 6,500 admitted in fiscal year 2023 and just over 1,600 in the immediate wake of the withdrawal, in fiscal year 2022.

Critics nevertheless say legal pathways for vulnerable Afghans are still woefully inadequate.

Afghanistan as a ‘cudgel’

While Democrats have been largely silent on the subject of the Afghanistan withdrawal, Azizzada noted that Republicans have embraced the subject this election cycle — but only as a “partisan cudgel and tool”.

That was apparent on Monday, as Trump hosted a campaign event at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He joined the families of several soldiers who were killed at the Kabul airport for a memorial ceremony there.

Hours later, Trump gave a speech to a conference of National Guard members in Detroit. Faced with military members and their families, he highlighted the Democrats’ role in the Afghanistan troop withdrawal.

“Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” Trump told the crowd.

He pledged to “get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity, to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day”.

In a subsequent statement, Harris defended the withdrawal, saying the Biden administration “has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones”.

For Azizzada, one word best describes the absence of any mention of Afghans in the election discourse: “dehumanising”.

A political opportunity?

Still, some advocates have seen reason for hope in the inclusion of Afghans in the Democratic National Committee’s policy platform, released earlier this month.

It calls for the “provisions to streamline applications of at-risk Afghan allies” through the US refugee programme and “a process for Afghan evacuees to have their status adjusted to lawful permanent resident”.

Many Afghans evacuated during the troop withdrawal were granted access to the US through the “humanitarian parole” programme, which allows them to live and work in the country. However, it offers no pathway to permanent residency.

Legislation known as the Afghan Adjustment Act, that would create that pathway — as well as other means of support for Afghans in the US — has continued to languish in Congress.

Joseph Azam, a lawyer and chair of the Afghan-American Foundation, said the legislation has stalled in the “headwinds” of a deep partisan divide over immigration.

Republicans, he explained, have largely opposed increasing immigration. Democrats, meanwhile, “have lurched to the right” on the issue.

“Any kind of signal that they have empathy — or there are carve-outs, or there are people to whom this increasingly extreme approach to immigration does not apply — is seen as politically wrong,” Azam said.

Nevertheless, Azam argued the candidates should view the issue as a political opportunity rather than an albatross.

He pointed out that influential veterans groups support increased immigration pathways for Afghans who worked alongside the US military, including through the Afghan Adjustment Act.

Veterans, he added, are also a powerful voting bloc in swing states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

“The five or six states that are probably going to decide this election happen to also have some of the largest populations of US veterans,” Azam said. “If you can move a couple thousand people and their families on this issue in a key state, that’s the election, right?”

‘Honours its pledges’

When asked about the issues they want to hear on the campaign trail, advocates for Afghan refugees named a myriad: from immigration reform to increased funding for resettlement services.

In her work, for instance, immigration lawyer Laila Ayub helps lead Project ANAR, a nonpartisan non-profit group that provides legal services to recently arrived Afghans.

She told Al Jazeera that, with few options to migrate legally, Afghans are making treacherous journeys across the southern US border. That leaves her concerned about the emphasis this election season on border and asylum restrictions.

“Afghan Americans, like myself, are voters, and we need to hear proactive support for our community, not just in terms of a national security framing,” she said.

“Our community was impacted by decades of US foreign policy and military presence, and that there’s historical precedent for enacting protections.”

Naheed Samadi Bahram, the US country director for the nonpartisan community group Women for Afghan Women, said she hopes for a presidential candidate who “cares about women’s rights, somebody who cares about the immigrants’ rights”.

She spoke to Al Jazeera just days after the Taliban published a new raft of “vice and virtue” laws, which bans women from being heard in public, among other restrictions.

Bahram added that she would like to see more funding for legal and mental health services for Afghans in the US. Many community groups rely mostly on donations from foundations and individuals, she explained.

“I’m hopeful for this election, and I hope that the election will bring a lot of life into the situation in Afghanistan and to the evacuation process,” she said. Still, she acknowledged, “it will be very difficult”.

Khalil Anwari, who works for the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nonpartisan non-profit, said candidates should view support for Afghans as sending a wider message to the world about the strength of US ideals.

“For many years, the US — when it comes to being a place of refuge — globally, it has been the leading country. However, in the past couple of years, based on policies that were undertaken, it has lost that status,” said Anwari, who also fled Afghanistan on an evacuation flight following the Taliban takeover.

Providing opportunities for Afghans to seek safety is a way the US can regain that status and bolster its standing on the world stage, he explained.

“This goes hand in hand with the understanding that the US honours its pledges to their allies,” Anwari said. “That is seen by people all over the world when the pledges that are made are honoured.”