Kim Staffieri might seem an unlikely candidate for the volunteer role that consumes so much of her life. Over the past five years, she has donated thousands of hours helping Afghans navigate the U.S. government’s program for Special Immigrant Visas.
FAIRPORT, N.Y. — Kim Staffieri woke before dawn to find the latest in the seemingly never-ending stream of desperate text messages and voice mails from Afghanistan.
“It’s so disheartening to see the U.S., [which] had the biggest interest in this war of any country in the world, turn their backs on people,” she said. “If we don’t take care of the folks who worked with our troops, who kept our troops safe, who made our troops effective over there, the next time we step into a conflict zone, who is going to help?”
A year later, the estimated backlog of SIV applicants and their dependents has surpassed 346,000 people. “Nobody in Afghanistan, including all of us who were there, felt or knew that the Ghani administration was going to collapse when it did,” said the State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, under terms set by the department.
But the advocates are frustrated. They say the administration has been slow to address problems, and too many Afghans remain stranded. “We are 13 people,” he said in a phone interview from Kabul, the Afghan capital. His employer gave him $5,000 before departing for the United States last summer, he said. “But that has run out … We have had to sell a lot of our belongings to be able to afford meals.”
“My interview was scheduled in Doha … They thought I was in Doha,” wrote one applicant in Kabul. “Now I am in a bubble of confusion, and I don’t know what to do.” State Department officials recently said that of the 77,000 Afghans — which, including their dependents, would amount to an estimated 346,500 people — who have currently pending SIV applications, more than 85 percent have incomplete applications. A department official declined to say whether those applicants had yet been notified.Staffieri took up the case of Sayyed, a military interpreter, who had been waiting two years for a visa.
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