The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

60 MARCH 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL government employees, and they deserve to be alive. That’s one responsibility for the U.S., but the other respon- sibility is helping Afghans within the U.S. The resettlement agencies need to employ people who understand the culture of Afghanistan and have an under- standing of how the evacuation happened, and should differen- tiate between illegal immigra- tion and evacuation. Not everybody who made it here is from the capital, Kabul. There are people from very remote parts of Afghanistan who have never been to the cities. They may ask stupid questions. They may ask questions again and again, and we have to have people in charge who have the capacity to understand that. Many refugees are not feeling welcomed. Let’s work with the resettlement agencies to be more pro- active, more responsive, more helpful. We as evacuees left everything behind. There should be a strong program to resettle Afghans, to help them to find places to live, jobs, a new sense of belonging. This is not a story of just one family. It is the tragedy of all those who left Afghanistan, their homes, their savings, even their families. Evacuation happened. But what happens after evacuation? n Evacuation itself was a night- mare, honestly. It was a veteran unit that got me out. The captain, his fam- ily, they were always in contact with me, asking: “Are you safe?” I was moving from one location to another so as to not be caught. They were in touch with me every day saying: “Hang on, we are working to get you out.” I was very much welcomed in a nice way in Colorado. Captain Henkel and Heidi Henkel, the local city councilwoman, they made it home for us. We lost a lot, but the family and Broomfield community embraced us and took us in like their own. And 60 or 70 people are volunteering to help us any way they can. They’re visiting our house. They’re bringing their kids and making play dates with my kids. They’re helping financially, with housing, household items and many other things. c I was in such a difficult position, but I had contacts in the United States; imagine the situation for people who do not have any contacts. Imagine people who work as an interpreter in the worst conditions in a war zone. And now they’re not able to make it here and are under threat of death every day in Kabul. People who were involved in diplomatic missions are still stuck in Afghanistan. There is no hope for them. They are just moving from one place to another. And I don’t know how long they will be able to skip around like that. If this darkened regime gets recog- nized, I’m telling you, they will slaughter every one of those who worked for the U.S. government. As for what the U.S. government can do now, there are a lot of ways. The unit that is working on SIVs, they might need to get practical, find people who understand the Afghan people—a unit from the State Department, the military, Homeland Security and dedicated Afghans who have experience verifying documents. Bring the heroes, the allies, to the U.S. I want the civil servant readers to realize that there is a lot of pain behind this history that I cannot explain here. By rejecting SIVs, you put a lot of lives in danger. Let’s fulfill the commitments to bringing our allies to the U.S., so they will not be victims of their jobs. Most of them were faithfully working side by side with U.S. soldiers, with U.S. Siddiqi children head out to play at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Sept. 6, 2021. AHMADKHALIDSIDDIQI Ahmad Khalid Siddiqi with three of his children at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Sept. 5, 2021. AHMADKHALIDSIDDIQI