State Department must reopen SIV case to repair six years of separation

The following concludes a series about how State Department age determinations put special immigrant visa applicant Wali Akrami’s son Waheed in needless peril for six years.

Afghan refugee Waheed Akrami arrived in Rochester, New York, this month on humanitarian parole after an apparent State Department blunder separated him from his family for six long years.

In 2018, a State Department interviewer decided that the April 1994 birthdate on Waheed’s passport, identity card, and other documentation was incorrect. Assigning him a birth year of 1993, the interviewer found that Waheed was seven months too old to qualify for the special immigrant visa his father Wali earned through 12 years of service to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

Waheed’s U.S. government parole paperwork acknowledges his date of birth as April 1994. Ellen Smith, executive director of the nonprofit organization Keeping Our Promise, believes that the State Department must reopen Waheed’s case to grant him the SIV he qualified for in 2018.

The distinction of how Waheed entered the U.S. remains important. When Waheed’s family arrived through the SIV process in 2018, they were immediately eligible for green cards and legal permanent residence. Waheed’s humanitarian parole only provides him two years of temporary safety. Waheed must apply for asylum if he hopes to access legal permanent resident status and citizenship.

Waheed’s brother Aleem, an SIV recipient in his own right, told the Washington Examiner that his family faced emotional anguish and physical side effects during their long separation. Waheed’s mother Nafesa suffered horribly. She told the Washington Examiner that when she left Waheed, “they just brought my body [to the U.S.]. My soul was separated from myself. They carried my dead body all the days from 2018 to 2024.”

The six years were also difficult for Waheed. His troubles began weeks after his family’s departure, when Waheed told the Washington Examiner that he was attacked and beaten brutally by unknown individuals outside his home. To avoid falling victim to further attacks, Waheed stopped leaving the house. He told Smith that his life had “become a prison.”

In December 2020, Waheed fled to India, where he applied for refugee status through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. As a refugee, Waheed was not allowed to work or pursue an education. He also stood out in his new environment and was often subjected to muggings and beatings, usually after retrieving the funds his parents sent for basic necessities.

Though Waheed said he dealt with depression over the last six years, he says he now feels “like a bird free from the cage.” After he acclimates to the U.S., he looks forward to continuing his education and training as a mechanic.

While running Keeping Our Promise, Smith has assisted 359 families comprising 1,214 individuals. Waheed’s case is one of several she believes were decided based on ethnic prejudice. In a written request to Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-NY) for the meaningful review of two SIV cases, she explained that “the limited number of SIV slots” led to competition that “created strong incentive for local consular personnel to arbitrarily deny SIV cases to members of competing socio-ethnic groups.” The Akramis are Tajik. Their interviewer was Pashtun.

Staff members at the International Refugee Assistance Project told the Washington Examiner about other deficiencies highlighted by Waheed’s case that affect numerous Afghans. Stephen Poellot, IRAP’s director of legal knowledge and training, said that IRAP has “seen many concerning decisions where the U.S. Embassy in Kabul appears to have violated State Department guidance or ignored the majority of evidence when refusing an applicant based on an issue that came up during an interview.”

Poellot added that “there are few protections for applicants overseas who usually have no legal representation, navigate complicated topics in a second language, receive only boilerplate letters if refused, and don’t have access to a court to appeal.”

Alexandra Zaretsky, an Equal Justice Works fellow with IRAP, noted that the Child Status Protection Act, which determines a child’s age at the date of their parent’s filing for a visa, is designed to protect children whose parents seek entry to the U.S. Instead, children “who were as young as 14 when their parent applied for SIV status are stuck in Afghanistan” because of SIV processing delays.

Originally, applicants’ children were deemed SIV eligible if they were under 21 years old and unmarried when their parent filed an I-360 SIV application, which could only occur after the applicant received Chief of Mission approval. Adam Bates, supervisory policy counsel at IRAP, explained that during the first 10 years of the SIV program, many applicants “watched their children age out” of SIV eligibility while awaiting Chief of Mission approval. Bates said that as of late July 2022, applicants are no longer required to file an I-360. Now, a child’s eligibility is determined by the date upon which the primary SIV applicant requested Chief of Mission approval.

Aleem told the Washington Examiner that his father requested Chief of Mission approval in 2013, when Waheed was just 19 years old.

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In response to questions about whether there could be a path for recourse if an SIV applicant’s age was misidentified during the SIV process, the State Department told the Washington Examiner it ”cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases.”

“Through granting Waheed humanitarian parole with a 1994 date of birth,” Smith believes the U.S. government has admitted it previously made an error determining Waheed’s age. “The government has to make this right,” she said.

Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the co-host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into nearly two decades of war and the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.