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Processing delays leave thousands of visa lottery winners in limbo days before deadline

Their dream of leaving Afghanistan and beginning a brand new life in America is slipping away.

Samira Salehy and Baset Ahmad stated they had been elated after they realized final 12 months that that they had gained the 2021 U.S. variety visa lottery — a program that sees as many as 55,000 inexperienced playing cards awarded annually to immigrants from nations all over the world as a part of a bid to advertise variety within the U.S.

However after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, they stated their futures are in danger due to processing delays the State Division has blamed on the coronavirus pandemic.

“[It was] my large want,” Salehy, 27, informed NBC Information by phone Tuesday. The civil engineer and longtime ladies’s rights activist added that upon discovering out that they had gained the lottery in June 2020, she referred to as her husband to inform him their “U.S. dream [was] going to come back true.”

Samira Salehy, 27, and Baset Ahmad, 33, fled Afghanistan to Poland.Courtesy Baset Ahmad

Now their hope has turned to desperation because the couple is simply days away from dropping their probability to name America dwelling.

As soon as the Sept. 30 cutoff date for acquiring visas has handed, they can’t be used and will likely be misplaced perpetually.

For the younger couple who fled from Afghanistan to Warsaw, Poland, on a brief visa in late August, it appears like a matter of life and demise.

Ahmad, 33, who served in a senior position with Afghanistan’s Ministry for Peace earlier than the Taliban takeover, having beforehand labored for a corporation that helped provide gasoline to U.S. forces, stated their lives had been “at risk” earlier than they left their homeland.

Salehy added they’d probably need to return if they might not get hold of their variety visas.

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The couple are simply two of a gaggle of roughly 24,000 peoplefrom round 140 nations who’re embroiled in lawsuit in opposition to the Biden administration concerning the delays in processing them.

The deadline for variety visa circumstances to be accredited will likely be “logistically not possible” for a lot of to be granted in time, Curtis Morrison, one of many legal professionals representing the group, stated Tuesday.

As a result of it isn’t a class-action lawsuit, Morrison stated it solely utilized to these named as plaintiffs, so many variety visa winners may nonetheless lose their probability to maneuver to the U.S. whatever the end result.

Morrison was additionally vital of the State Division’s choice in June to downgrade variety visa processing to a “Tier 4” precedence — the bottom degree — regardless of the strict deadlines related to this system.

He stated he felt the division was “making an attempt to make use of Covid” to keep away from its duty to course of the visas in a bid to chop down on an ever-growing backlog.

Taliban troopers stroll in entrance of the protesters through the anti-Pakistan protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 7.West Asia Information Company / Reuters

“Congress and the Immigration and Nationality Act says it’s a must to put aside 55,000 visa winners a 12 months,” he stated. “They do not have a loophole to get them out of choosing the 55,000, so what they’re doing is making an attempt to make use of Covid as a loophole to get them out of issuing them after they entice and invite these selectees into having hope,” he stated.

Calling the State Division’s habits “monstrous,” he added that this system had already suffered a string of main setbacks over the previous 5 years.

Former President Donald Trump’s journey ban affecting predominantly Muslim-majority nations had prevented many variety visa winners from claiming their prize, and additional journey bans introduced within the wake of the coronavirus pandemic had additionally barred candidates from coming into the U.S., Morrison stated.

Though President Joe Biden overturned the so-called Muslim ban on his first day in workplace and later rescinded Presidential Proclamation 10014, which blocked visa holders perceived as a “danger to the U.S. labor market” through the pandemic, for a lot of variety visa winners, his efforts got here too late to assist their circumstances, he added.

U.S. District Choose Amit Mehta issued a brief injunction this month in Morrison’s case ordering the State Division to undertake “good-faith efforts” to course of variety visa 2021 functions by Sept. 30.

Nevertheless, Morrison stated the ruling gave the State Division “three outs” that successfully render the injunction ineffective, with the division excused for delays brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, useful resource limitations and “nation constraints.”

A State Division spokesperson informed NBC Information it was enterprise “good-faith efforts” to adjust to Mehta’s ruling.

“The State Division has instructed embassies and consulates to make each effort inside their discretion and topic to useful resource constraints, limitations as a result of Covid-19 pandemic and nation situations to prioritize the scheduling and adjudication of DV-2021 circumstances,” they stated.

Whereas the State Division was unable to offer in-person consular providers for immigrant visas in Afghanistan, the spokesperson added that candidates may attempt to course of their visas “exterior of Afghanistan.”

Nevertheless, they acknowledged it was “at present extraordinarily troublesome” for Afghans go away their nation and journey elsewhere.

A person walks with a toddler via Fort Bliss’ Dona Ana Village in New Mexico, the place Afghan refugees are being housed.David Goldman / AP file

Though they made it out, Salehy and Ahmad stated repeated efforts to hunt assist from the U.S. Embassy in Poland forward of the deadline had been rebuffed.

For U.S. variety visa winners who’re nonetheless in Afghanistan, the state of affairs can be dire.

Mohammad Saeedi, 22, stated Wednesday that he feared the Taliban would goal him for attending the American College of Afghanistan in Kabul, the place he has nearly accomplished a level in accounting and finance.

As a result of it’s affiliated with the U.S., the group see the establishment’s college students “formally as infidels,” stated Saeedi, who is just not a part of Morrison’s lawsuit.

On Friday, he stated he was provided a last-minute interview on the U.S. Embassy’s workplace in Islamabad, the capital of neighboring Pakistan, as a part of the method for acquiring his variety visa.

However he stated the appointment is ready for Sept. 28 — simply two days earlier than the deadline.

Saeedi added he was uncertain whether or not he can be allowed to journey to Pakistan, and if he was, he stated it might price him lots of of {dollars}. Even when he does make it, he stated he was anxious that he wouldn’t be issued the visa in time.

It is a far cry from the optimism he felt when he first realized that he had gained the range visa lottery in June 2020. Again then, he stated he thought it might permit him to affix his sister, who was awarded a variety visa a number of years in the past, within the U.S., and he had hoped to begin a profession.

Saeedi stated the American authorities ought to honor the promise it made to variety visa winners “as a result of it is our proper.” If it didn’t, he stated, “I need the world to know that the U.S. left us behind.”

“I had so many plans,” he added. “However proper now, I’m hopeless.”

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