Former Afghan interpreter struggles to stay in US

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Terrified, he ran home, grabbed a piece of bread that was no bigger than a cell phone, he said, and brought it back to the group of men.

“I thought I was a hero. I protected my family and did as I was told,” Niazy, who is now 33, told CNN in an interview on Tuesday as she spoke. remembering the incident. “It wasn’t a request, it was an order. If a piece of bread could protect my family, I would do it again.”

The moment haunted him, and he later became an interpreter for the US Army and worked in other support roles for Allied forces in Afghanistan more than ten years ago. His family continued to face threats, and Niazy says he was shot in the arm and crushed his leg in a bus crash after being the target of a grenade.

It’s a story detailed in his 2015 asylum claim in the United States. When he traveled to Washington, DC, in 2014 to attend a conference, he stayed in the country and moved to Iowa. forces, he said.

“I just wanted to be alive and I didn’t want to be a problem for my parents or anyone else,” he said, describing why he stayed in the United States. “I applied for political asylum. It’s my right. I wanted to be alive.”

Today, Niazy, who still lives in Iowa, faces deportation after being declared ineligible for asylum by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which fall under the Department of Homeland Security.

In the response in May – six years after his request – the government refused to grant him asylum and referred his case to an immigration judge for further consideration.

The reason listed for his decision was short and to the point: “You have engaged in terrorist activity. The notice said Niazy had “failed to establish by a preponderance of evidence that such reasons did not apply to” him.

It was a dizzying statement for Niazy. The government did not specify what it meant by “terrorist activity” and when contacted by CNN, a spokesperson for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service said the department was not discussing the issue. information on asylum applications.

But Niazy suspects they are referring to that terrifying moment when he was 9 and gave bread to the Taliban. It was an anecdote he recounted in his asylum interview, according to Niazy and her lawyer, when asked if he had ever met anyone among the Taliban. He and his lawyer now fear that this is the reason his asylum claim was not granted.

Niazy, who ran her own DIY business in Iowa, now feels stuck in no man’s land.

“By the US government, I was identified as a terrorist. By the Taliban, I was identified as an American spy,” he said. “I’m human too. I want to be alive. And God gives me life, but they take my life, just for me to do what I did when I was 9 to protect my family.”

Targeted by the Taliban

While Niazy has already been in the United States for several years, her story comes as thousands of other Afghan performers and people who have assisted American forces now attempt to leave Afghanistan as the United States withdraws its troops. from the country. Up to 18,000 people are applying for the Special Immigrant Visa program, and a US official and another source familiar with the discussions say the US is in talks with countries in Central Asia over their temporary accommodation for applicants. , until they can complete the long visa process. If they are allowed to bring family members, the effort could expand to more than 50,000 people, sources say.

Niazy’s story is notably different from what interpreters and allies are currently facing in Afghanistan. Since he was already in the United States and fearful of returning home, he and his lawyer applied for asylum rather than a special immigrant visa.

Shortly after Niazy began working as an interpreter for US forces in March 2007, her family began to face threats from the Taliban in her home province of Uruzgan, according to her asylum claim. The Taliban began sending letters to his family promising to “punish” him if he didn’t stop working for US troops, whom they called “infidels.”

When Niazy continued to work as an interpreter, the Taliban killed his uncle, he said, sending the family a letter claiming responsibility for the death, according to handwritten letters provided and translated by Niazy and his lawyer. Her family moved to Kabul and Niazy quit her job in 2009 and took another job for an Afghan construction company in partnership with NATO and US forces.

According to his asylum claim, he was approached by anti-government forces while driving on October 11, 2009, who shot his car dozens of times as he tried to escape. A bullet hit Niazy’s arm, but he managed to escape.

The following year, he was targeted by Taliban forces with a rocket-propelled grenade as he and some of his colleagues were traveling in a passenger bus. The assailants missed the bus, but the bus driver lost control of the vehicle and rolled over as they tried to escape. Niazy’s leg was crushed in the crash, according to her claim.

In December 2014, Niazy traveled to Washington to attend the US-Afghanistan Business Twinning Conference of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce. When the Taliban learned he was in the United States, they sent his father another threatening letter. Niazy had a cousin who had also served as an interpreter and lived in the United States on a special immigrant visa. So Niazy stayed and moved to Iowa to be near her cousin.

Less than a year later, Niazy requests asylum.

The call could take years

Since the Citizenship and Immigration Services decision in May, Niazy has been waiting in a crippling state of fear, fearing that if he is sent home he will be killed. He said he had to take medication to deal with the anxiety of living “in limbo”.

“I am not stable,” he said. “I’m like plastic in the grass. The wind will take it from place to place. In the end, it will end up in the garbage.”

Niazy’s attorney, Keith Herting, says there is still a legal avenue to prevent the deportation – but it could take years.

The letter from the Citizenship and Immigration Services states that Niazy’s asylum request has not been technically refused and that he can ask the immigration judge to reconsider it. The judge does not need to follow the decision made by the agency and will consider the request independently.

Until then, Niazy, his lawyer and his community will continue to seek answers as to why he has been accused of engaging in terrorist activity – a statement that still seems to come as a shock to Niazy.

“I fought this terrorist organization,” he said. “How can I be accused of being part of or with them or supporting them?” “

CNN’s Nicole Gaouette, Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.

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