This week marks the third anniversary of the Taliban’s capture of Kabul and the fall of the US-backed government in Afghanistan.
As a result, anyone associated with the former Afghan government is in danger. Under Taliban rule, women’s rights to education, work, freedom of movement and representation are also severely restricted.
According to the Vermont branch of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), about 600 of the Afghan refugees have settled in Vermont.
At a press conference in Burlington on Monday, Amila Merdzanovic, USCRI field director in Vermont, said each of these people still has friends and family in Afghanistan.
“I want us all to take a moment and sit in silence,” Merdzanovic told attendees, “and remember those who remain behind in the hope that they can be reunited with their families.”
As evacuations from Afghanistan continue – in some cases with the assistance of a retired Vermont judge – Vermont activists are calling on the government to issue green cards to Afghans who supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
Many who have already fled their home countries to the United States did so under “humanitarian parole,” which does not provide a path to legal immigration status.
Elodie Reed
/
Vermont Public Administration
Among the Afghans currently living in Vermont are two of the country’s female judges: Hamida Punjshiri and Anisa Rasooli. Punjshiri, who arrived just two weeks ago, is one of the highest-ranking judges in the Afghan judiciary. Rasooli is the first woman nominated to Afghanistan’s Supreme Court.
Rasooli said at Monday’s event through an interpreter that Afghan judges are in grave danger, particularly from the released prisoners against whom they have ruled. In some cases, she said, those released prisoners are now senior Taliban officials.
Rasooli called on the US government to help evacuate the judges remaining in Afghanistan.
That kind of federal support was nowhere to be found after the Taliban took power in 2021, says retired Vermont judge Patricia Whalen.
Whalen has served as both a family court judge in Vermont and an international judge in the war crimes chamber in Sarajevo. She also directed the Vermont Afghan Women Judges Judicial Education project, a cross-cultural program that hosted dozens of Afghan judges in Vermont from 2004 to 2014.
And after one of the judges who visited Vermont was murdered in 2021, Whalen says she and other judges around the world formed a committee dedicated to the safety of Afghan judges.
“Nobody wanted to leave Afghanistan, but at some point they said, if Kabul fell and the Taliban came back, would we help them evacuate? And of course we said ‘yes,'” Whalen said Monday. “But believe me, we had no idea how to do it. I mean, absolutely no idea.”
Then the Taliban actually took over Kabul. And Whalen said no one from the US government would intervene to get the judges out.
“The exception was Senator Leahy’s office, which really helped us from day one,” she said. “But to be honest, it was mostly encouragement.”
A 2022 State Department review of its actions during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul shows systematic failures limiting its response to the crisis, including a “significant backlog in the Afghan SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) process” under the Trump administration, with the department praising the work of its staff in evacuating 125,000 people in two weeks.
To mobilize the Afghan judges, Whalen worked with her fellow judges from her kitchen table and over the Internet. They raised money for a 24-hour interpreter service, set up a hotline and coordinated the evacuation of 215 of the 254 judges – and their families – who asked for help.
“That’s over 1,000 people,” Whalen said. “We have 39 judges left in Afghanistan and we’re going to get them out.”
The last female judges in Afghanistan, she said, survive by living in hiding.
“There is really a lot of psychological damage being done right now, and the longer they are there, the greater the damage will be,” Whalen said.
Elodie Reed
/
Vermont Public Administration
Khalil Anwari, one of the Afghans now living in Vermont and a program manager at USCRI, said at Monday’s event that there is a law that could make the immigration process easier. It’s called the Afghan Adjustment Act and it would give green cards to people who have assisted the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
“Thousands of Afghans evacuated to the United States live in legal limbo,” Anwari said. “Their future is uncertain, their ability to plan for tomorrow limited by the lack of permanent residency.”
He added that these were people who had risked their lives alongside the American forces in Afghanistan.
“They deserve our gratitude, but even more they deserve the security of knowing that they have a place in the United States, a place where they can build their lives and contribute to their communities,” Anwari said.
On Monday, he also spoke out in favor of the Asylum Seeker Work Permit Act and the Refugee Protection Act. These laws would, among other things, shorten the waiting period for a work permit for asylum seekers and limit the minimum number of refugees admitted to the United States each year to 125,000.
Anwari said these measures are designed to help refugees and immigrants in the United States better transition back into their lives – and help strengthen the economies and social fabric of communities. This is something Vermonters have generously supported in the past, said Anwari and the other speakers at Monday’s event.
“There is a saying, an anecdote from Afghan culture, قطره، قطره دریا میشود, which roughly translates to ‘drop by drop, a river is formed,'” said Anwari. “I have seen the embodiment of this saying in the actions and collective actions of Vermonters.”
He added that although Vermont is a small state, it is an important thought leader in the country.
Do you have any questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.
