| METRO | THE FORGOTTEN REFUGEES O n an afternoon in March, Hassani sat on his bed in an extended- stay hotel room in Doral, taking bites of bolani — a traditional Afghan stuffed flat- bread — and sipping tea that he brewed for his guests. The room was filled with objects that at- tested to more than a short-term stay: a stove with teapots, a work desk with photos, a bicycle near the door, and a prayer mat. Hassani was recently relocated to Little Havana, but he spent his first four months in the U.S. in Doral with about 80 fellow ref- ugees who’d escaped Afghanistan after the Taliban seized control last year. In all, more than 600 Afghan refugees have been brought to South Florida since October of 2021. Some have moved on to states that are home to existing Afghan communities, but those who stayed have been quietly trying to make a life for themselves in Miami, where hardly anyone speaks their language or shares their culture. Those like Hassani, and his friend Karimi, still fear for their families back home and ask to be identified only by their last names for fear that the Taliban will identify them and harm their loved ones. With the onset of war in Ukraine, the world has largely turned its attention to the plight of Ukrainians and support for the inev- itable wave of evacuees from that country, while Afghans who fled violent conflict have been forgotten. “We are worried about our future,” Hassani Recent Afghan arrivals struggle to build a new life in Miami. BY JOSHUA CEBALLOS laments. “What will happen after our two-year visas are up? Will they send us somewhere else? We don’t know what will happen.” These are Miami’s forgotten refugees, who came to South Florida to escape persecution and build a new life like so many others have in the past, and are now struggling to adapt to a place with a crushing housing market, sparse pedestrian infrastructure, and little to no cultural community aside from what they can build themselves. The American Pullout From Afghanistan In his first year in office, President Biden announced a full removal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after two decades of military ac- tivity in the region. As U.S. troops pulled out in the fall, the Taliban seized American weap- onry and equipment and captured the capital city of Kabul. Afghan people who had assisted U.S. forces — like 29-year-old Hassani, who worked as an interpreter because he learned English in Pakistan — feared for their lives as the Taliban sought retribution against locals who’d aided the U.S. “I didn’t know working with Americans carried this much risk. The Taliban said that anyone who catches a translator would be paid $40,000,” Hassani tells New Times. “I felt hopeless. I thought that if I stepped out- side my house, they would cut my neck.” When a group of neighbors said they were heading to Kabul International Airport on August 18, 2021, to try to board a flight to head stateside, Hassani’s mother encouraged him to leave with his sister and see if they could secure a way out. When they arrived at the airport, droves of civilians were gathered there, desperate to Hassani, who asked only to be identified by his last name, in his Doral hotel room. Photo by Joshua Ceballos leave the country. Hassani recalls the footage that made national headlines: Afghan people running after U.S. military planes, clutching onto the wings in hope of leaving with them. “We were really scared, because at any time we were expecting a suicide bombing. That was something that was happening reg- ularly,” Hassani says. After waiting for more than two hours, Hassani was able to speak to an American sol- dier and tell him he and his group had Special Immigrant Visas (SIV), and the soldier ush- ered them to a plane. Hassani wasn’t sure he’d make it this far, so he neglected to bring a phone charger or properly say goodbye to his mother before he was on a flight to a U.S. mili- tary base in Germany. For two months, Hassani and his sister hopped from base to base, hurrying up and waiting as the U.S. government scrambled to find homes for thousands of refugees. As of this month, the U.S. has resettled more than 72,000 Afghan nationals through Operation Allies Welcome, a Department of State (DOS) spokesperson tells New Times via email. “[The refugees] had genuine confusion as to why they were in Florida,” says Bobuq Sayed, a Miami-based writer and artist and volunteer interpreter for the local nonprofit Refugee Assistance Alliance. “There are no Afghans settled here, and no infrastructure for poor people or people who don’t have cars.” When the refugees are brought over to U.S. soil, DOS works with nonprofit agencies to find suitable places to resettle them and help them start a new life. A DOS spokesper- son tells New Times that where refugees are resettled depends on a variety of factors, in- cluding existing U.S. ties and the capacity of resettlement-agency affiliates in a given state. Jamie Scotti Everett, director of opera- tions for Refugee Assistance Alliance, tells New Times that the U.S.’ capacity to help refu- gees has been on the decline since 2016 and the advent of the Trump administration. “For the past five administrations, the av- erage cap for refugees entering the U.S. has been about 100,000 refugees allowed annu- ally. The Trump administration slashed that number to historic lows, down to [under] 20,000,” Everett says. During Trump’s presidency, resettlement agencies also lost a lot of their funding and the number of agencies and offices operating in each state significantly diminished. The Biden administration has put funding toward resettlement in states like Florida, where Ev- erett says one resettlement agency — >> p4 4 4 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 APRIL 28 - MAY 4, 2022 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS |miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com
