One year after the Taliban takeover, Nashville’s Afghan community needs our support
Attorney Karla McKanders and TNJFON staff attorney Alvaro Manrique Barrenechea interviewed by News Channel 5 about the need for pro bono legal assistance.
One year has passed since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, but tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees in the United States remain in legal limbo without a clear path to legal permanent residency. As TNJFON continues to support Afghan asylum seekers in Nashville, we need volunteer interpreters for Dari and Pashto to ensure that all our neighbors receive the representation they need.
A majority of the 76,000 Afghans evacuated to the United States in the summer of 2021 arrived under humanitarian parole rather than as refugees. Parole status does not provide a path to permanent residency or citizenship. For parolees to retain their legal status after the two year parole period, they must apply for asylum within a year of arriving in the country.
Applying for asylum is an arduous process that requires extensive documentation and support from a skilled attorney, resources that many Afghans have struggled to access. As a result, tens of thousands of parolees in the United States have yet to submit their asylum applications and risk losing their legal status by this time next year.
To support the over 500 Afghans that arrived in Nashville in 2021, TNJFON has expanded our legal team and pursued collaborations with other local attorneys. For the last year, we have partnered with Vanderbilt Law School on our Afghan clinics, completing intakes for over 190 families. This spring, we hired legal clerks Negar Ahmadi and Hashmatullah Azizi to provide Dari and Pashto interpretation for our Afghan clients. With funding from Metro Nashville Davidson County Government, we were able to hire law students Emily Webb and Zoey Hamm as well as attorney Brittany Given to increase our capacity.
Despite the challenges of the last year, we are feeling hopeful today. TNJFON is currently representing 63 asylum seekers, and our attorneys have filed asylum applications for 11 individuals, putting families one step closer to the security that comes with permanent legal residency.
True justice for our Afghan neighbors requires policy action at the national level. TNJFON, along with the national Justice for Our Neighbors network, calls on Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act. Introduced on August 9, 2022, the legislation would provide a path to permanent legal residency to Afghans admitted under humanitarian parole.