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Former U.S. translator Serweri at WNHH: Brother's family stranded.
They risked their lives to help the U.S. They followed all the rules to win permission to come to the U.S. to escape death threats. They had their airplane tickets ready. Mohammad Daad Serweri was ready to welcome them to New Haven and help them start new lives.
Then the Trump administration slammed shut the door. What happens next to the Afghan families — and to the U.S.‘s ability to convince people in other countries to risk their lives to help us in the future — is suddenly in question.
Serweri is on the front lines here of the fallout for Afghans. It has life and death consequences for his own family.
Serweri is an associate director of Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS), New Haven’s main resettlement agency. IRIS issued an emergency fund-raising appeal in reaction to a cancelation of a $4 million federal contract the Trump administration announced late Friday, part of a suspension of immigrant and refugee programs nationwide. (Click here to donate.)
The Trump actions — a suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — have particularly rattled the Afghan community. Some 40,000 Afghans were in the process of seeking resettlement in the U.S. under the program; an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 were set to fly here in coming weeks after complete vetting by the U.S. government when the flights were suddenly halted last week.
That includes around 20 people who were fully approved to travel to New Haven on Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) in February, Serweri said during an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
Serweri described the federal decisions as “devastating.”
“It has drastically increased our fear of losing lives,” he said. “It’s a very helpless moment.”
IRIS had prepared to work with around 200 Afghans in all this year under its now-canceled federal contract. It’s also scrambling to replace now-canceled money to work with Afghans who arrived in recent weeks.
Serweri himself obtained an SIV to move here in 2017 after having served as a translator and cultural guide for the U.S. military during the war against the Taliban.
“We found a meaning and a purpose in this doing. We thought that the U.S. military and the government, what they were doing in Afghanistan, were aligned with the goal, the dream and vision the new generation had for the future,” Serweri recalled.
He had originally worked in Helmand Province until the Taliban gained ground there. He had to move to Kabul, where he began receiving unnerving threats. After IRIS helped him find a home and employment, he ended up signing up to work for the agency, again translating and connecting Americans to Afghans, now starting lives in New Haven.
He said the Taliban consider Afghans who worked with the U.S. “as even more criminal and more guilty compared to the international forces in Afghanistan. They were considered a betrayal to the country” and religion for having served as “the eyes and ears of” the U.S.
Serweri is worried about his own family still in Afghanistan. Because of his prior position his mother and sister have had to go into hiding, regularly moving to new locations. His brother worked for the U.S. as well; he and his wife and two children were “halfway” through the process of gaining admission to the U.S. when the door slammed shut last week.
Serweri predicted that ending refuge for U.S. helpers now in danger of losing their lives will have long-term implications.
“If you’re not supporting and helping those allies that risk their life to support your mission,” he asked, “then who will trust the United States in the future?”
Pavelo: Fear spreading through Ukrainian community.
Serweri was joined on “Dateline” by Tetyana Pavelo, IRIS’s staff outreach person to Ukrainian immigrants around the state. She moved here 10 years ago and obtained U.S. citizenship.
The news of the past week has spread fear among Ukrainian families statewide, Pavelo reported. President Donald Trump announced a review of an extension his predecessor had offered war-fleeing Ukrainians under the Temporary Protected Status program.
“We have families that have no home and their cities were wiped [out] and don’t exist” back in Ukrarine, Pavelo said. She said she tells people, “You’re safe and your documents are OK and your status is OK, as of today. We cannot guarantee that things will not change. We just want everyone to be correctly informed.”
Click on the video below to watch the full discussion with IRIS’s Mohammad Daad Serweri and Tetyana Pavelo on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of “Dateline New Haven.”