by Susan Kuklin
“Dave called too. I think Dave’s calls are what ultimately changed their minds. He had been there. He had seen Fred at work.”
I didn’t tell Homa about this. She was always asking me, “Where’s your application?” I’d tell her, “It’s under process — just wait.” But I was reading e-mails that said, denied, re-appeal, denied.
Dave wrote letters for me. He said, “If Fred doesn’t have space to live in the U.S., my house is his house. He can live with me.” Everybody who tried to help me was pissed.
Sari continues: “Finally, one person at MEP had the wherewithal to look at the pay records and the transfer records for the contracting company. They saw the error and agreed to change their letter.”
In August 2014, Sari submitted an appeal for Fred’s case, along with a new MEP letter with the corrected reason for termination: no position available.
Command Sergeant Major Paul Metz got Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin involved. She provided a letter of support for Fred’s appeal. At this point, they were appealing the denial based on the fact that the Mission Essential Personnel had screwed up.
Sari wasn’t convinced that an appeal would work. “I submitted a second, entirely new application, with all the correct answers. My thinking was, they could deny the appeal, but they could not deny a fresh, totally correct application.
“We waited and waited and still got nothing. We had submitted this stuff in August and September. No response.”
During the years of waiting, Fraidoon continued his dangerous work with the security company. The fatwa was still in place.
Sari says, “The National Visa Center and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were completely nonresponsive in any of the follow-ups that we were trying to get. Senator Baldwin’s office stayed involved. Finally, in April, the National Visa Center said, ‘We have everything we need.’ At last we were on the way.
“Two weeks later, the National Visa Center denied both the appeal and the second application. They said — and this is the worst part about the whole process — they said, ‘Derogatory information has been associated with Fraidoon Akhtari that is incompatible with the regulations of the SIV program.’ That’s when I cried at work.”
When “derogatory information” is cited as the reason for visa refusal, the application goes into a black hole. Sari says, “You will never find out what is on the record. It could have been a disgruntled colleague that called the embassy, and says, ‘Fraidoon, he worked for the Taliban.’ It could have been anything or anyone. They’ll never tell you what it is.”
At that point, Fred was ready to give up. “I’m done. What can I do now? There’s nothing I can do.” But Sari and Dave would not give up. They tapped everybody they knew. Sari spoke with generals and other military people to find the latest information. She went to immigration conferences and asked officials from the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services and from the National Visa Center how to get out of the black hole. Dave used his considerable contacts to call a general and the FBI legal attaché in Kabul.
Dave says, “One general — I’m not going to say his name because I don’t think that he would want this to be known — agreed to meet Fred in Kabul and do a detailed security background check. If there was anything that pinged on that background check, we would know what the issue was. We would know what was in the black hole. The general ran a background check, and not a single problem showed up.”
During this process, a second U.S. senator, Bill Cassidy, from Louisiana, became involved. Sari says, “Senator Cassidy had no connection with this fight, no constituents who worked with Fred in Afghanistan. But his office did more than any other in terms of getting information. I believe he agreed to help because Dave’s brother is a bigwig attorney in Louisiana.
“We wrote several letters to Secretary of State John Kerry, and later to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.” No stone was left unturned.
By August 2015, a year after the appeal and second application had been filed, Sari filed a new appeal, citing the general’s background check. Dave adds, “There was no formal citation because we couldn’t say who ran the background check. We could only say that it happened.
“In February 2016, we got the chief of mission’s approval for the case. We then submitted the petition to the Immigration Service.”
In June, the petition was approved. Sari and Dave were notified that Fred had a visa appointment on November 28, 2016. Everything went well at the visa appointment. Finally, finally, finally, Fred would be approved.
Not. Quite. Yet.
Congress authorizes only a limited number of visas for the SIV program. These visas were quickly running out. Sari said that her heart stopped anytime news came out that the government was running out of visas. Even as they were getting closer to the time when Fred could be issued a visa, she knew that there might not be any visas left.
Sari says, “My law firm has lobbyists who began lobbying on a pro bono basis for more visas, because this wasn’t a problem that only Fred was experiencing. Everybody applying for the SIV program faced incredible delays. At the last minute, Congress came through and authorized more visas.
“Through it all, Fred was never self-pitying. He was never not trusting of the work that we were doing. Everybody wanted to help. His story was just too sympathetic. You can’t read the letters from the American soldiers he worked with and not feel compelled to help.”
My case was approved after five different applications. It took seven years. I kept working with the Americans until July 13, 2017, two days before flying here.
When Fraidoon’s visa finally came through, he sent Sari a picture of it. She says, “I didn’t wait for the State Department and the IOM [International Organization for Migration] to buy the airline tickets. No way! No more waiting.” Sari and Dave called in the troops.
Dave Shiner, a soldier from the Pennsylvania National Guard, immediately started a GoFundMe campaign. “I couldn’t believe it,” Fred says. “The visa was barely dry on my passport before thousands of dollars were raised. The next week we bought four tickets to America. But the soldiers kept raising money. They bought me a car with the extra cash.”
After I went to the U.S. Embassy to pick up my visa, I went straight to see my boss at the security company. “Sir, I’m going to quit.” I didn’t say the reason. He said, “Look Fred, if you want more money, we would like to pay you. Stay with us.” He thought I was going to get another job with another company.
“Sir, it’s not about money.” I showed him the visa. “This is my visa. This is my ticket to America. This is where I’m going to live. I don’t like to leave you alone here, but I did this for the last fourteen years. Now I would like to go.”
The commander gave me two months’ extra salary. Yeah. I worked until the thirteenth of July, the day before my new life began.
That night, I wrote to my friends on Facebook: “Finally issued!” Everybody was happy. Some of the soldiers I worked with wrote some good jokes. Some wrote good comments, happy comments.
The next day, we were ready to fly. Homa, the children, and I went to the Kabul International Airport with our families — my mom, my dad, my brothers, my sister, Homa’s mom, dad, brothers, sisters, my uncles, and my brother-in-law. It was hard to say goodbye.
From Kabul airport, we flew to New Delhi, India. After an eight-hour layover, we flew directly to Dulles International Airport, in Washington, D.C. Before we landed, I told Homa, “Homa, a few friends of mine might be at the airport. They want to welcome me to the U.S.” I was expecting maybe five or six people. When we arrived, I went to pick up our bags, and someone had damaged my big suitcase. I was so upset about it. A police officer sent me to a complaint department.
As soon as I finished filling out all the documents in the airport, I went outside. Someone called out, “Welcome home, Fred!” I look around. Who is he? Josh W., from 2008. He had a black beard now and looked completely different. Then I saw twenty people from the Pennsylvania National Guard unit
. People from 2005, from the 82nd Airborne Division, North Carolina, were there. They left their homes at three o’clock in the morning just to say hi.
Sari was there. We finally got to meet. Dave was at the airport too. He flew in from Nebraska just to bring us home. So many of the great people I met in Afghanistan were there.
Sari says, “That morning at Dulles airport was the first time I met Dave in person. We probably spoke on the phone at least once a week throughout the years we worked on this. He’s such a character. Meeting Dave was amazing, especially knowing that in an hour, Fred would be showing up too.
“When Fred walked out of the arrival area, oh, my, I’ve never felt so much relief. I was convinced that Fred would face a ton of scrutiny when he presented his SIV in Washington, D.C. Thankfully he did not.
“Homa and the kids were happy, relaxed, and grateful. I’m sure that they hadn’t thought very much about how their lives were going to change. How could you possibly anticipate that? They’d left everything they knew, and now they were here. They didn’t know what their apartment would look like. They didn’t know what jobs they’d have. But they didn’t care, because after so many years, they were here.
“People wonder, if Fred had threats for so many years, how come the Taliban didn’t kill him? They tried. But it wasn’t like the Taliban had all the time in the world to go door-to-door looking for him every day.
“At no point did Fred think that the U.S. military wasn’t doing the right thing. At no point did he criticize the military or the U.S. government for delaying and messing up the interpreters’ SIV process. At no point did he ever say anything like that, which was not how I felt. I was angry the entire time. Multiple times I had KAYAK up on my computer screen, looking for round-trip tickets to Kabul, because I wanted to go myself and talk to the ambassador. I wanted to talk to Mission Essential Personnel. And if need be, I wanted to kick them in the shins, because what they were doing was astonishingly unjust.”
From Dulles, we flew to Chicago. We stayed there for a couple of hours and then took a flight to Nebraska. We had been traveling for thirty hours. I thought Nebraska was going to be a calm place. I thought that I would get off the airplane, sit in a car, go to my new home, and rest. But when I got there, everybody was there. Some people we knew and others we did not know. They made us feel welcome in Nebraska.
Our home is very happy. Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen no armored vehicles, no guns, no explosions, no helicopters, no military convoys. Everyone is safe. The only thing we saw were a couple of kids playing with fake guns. Homa is going to school to learn English. The school has a place for the children while Homa studies. She’s making friends with students from all over the world. Fardin goes to school. He’s learning English fast. I am working for a private security company, but this time the job is different. My main responsibility is to watch over the security for Facebook’s database in Omaha.
I didn’t think about this life for myself, not ever and ever. I wanted it for my kids and for my wife. They needed to live somewhere peaceful. For me, I don’t care. I can live in the middle of nowhere. But my wife and kids must live in peace. That was our first day of living in peace.
I told Homa, “We have to take care of the kids. We have to let the kids grow up not like me, not like you. They should grow up like kids here. They should be educated. They should go to a good college. They should learn a lot of things.”
I’m feeling so good, yeah. I’m so happy. My life here is completely different. In one and a half months, I have a job, Social Security, a driver’s license, and a green card. Homa is even happier than me. She says that Nebraska is the best place. I asked her, “Do you still think you made a mistake to marry me?”
“No, now you’re good.”
Most refugees have no option but to flee their country if their government cannot protect them from war and persecution. When guns, bombs, machetes, fire, and evildoers are coming every which way, they must RUN. There is little to no time to collect clothing, food, personal mementos, or money. RUN. Run where?
When events such as these happen, often a neighboring country steps up to help. The host country, with aid from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Red Cross, or other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), sets up temporary camps to house and feed the displaced people.
The Karens (pronounced KAH-renz), the second-largest ethnic group in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), are a case in point. The Karens have been brutally persecuted by the Bamar (also known as the Burmans), who have controlled the government for decades. Although the Karens fight back, they are no match for the country’s large, well-armed army. Thousands of Karen refugees have had to cross the border into Thailand and live in temporary refugee camps. Nathan is one of those people.
Nathan says, “Refugees do not want to live in camps. They want to be free to travel, make a living, build a real house, have their own rice field. A refugee camp is not a place where lazy people live, waiting for a handout. We’re there because we have no other options. We’re there because we are fleeing wars. We’re there because we were oppressed in our native country for religious reasons, for ethnic reasons, for all kinds of reasons. As a child, though, I did not understand this. I was just a kid doing things other kids did.”
I was born in the Shoklo Refugee Camp, on the Thai side of the border between Thailand and Myanmar. My parents were married for ten years before they had me. They named me Hei Blut. Hei Blut means “gift from God.” When I became an American citizen, I looked for a new name that had a similar meaning. Nathan in Hebrew means “He gave.” I thought, that’s a fine name. “He gave” is like “a gift from God.” So I became Nathan.
My dad’s name is Billy. He could not speak a word of English, but he has an English name. He was named after a Christian missionary. My mom’s name is Eh Ku, which represents “love” in Karen. My brothers and sisters all kept their Karen names.
I grew up like a regular kid, doing normal kid stuff. I didn’t know that there was any other way of life. We had our own house, more like a hut, that was made of bamboo with teak leaves for the roof. I had lots of friends, and my grandparents, my mom’s parents, lived with us. I was a happy child. My dad worked across the border in Myanmar, building barracks for the Karen army, the KNLA, and was often away.
In 1995, not long after I was born, our camp was burned down by a group of rebels. Everything happened in a split second. There was no time to pack anything, including money, or to prepare for evacuation. My mom, my grandparents, and I just ran. This was hard, especially for my grandmother. She had hidden all her money above her sleeping place. Everyone told her that it was not a safe place for money, but she refused to listen. She wanted to be able to reach up and touch her money. She lost all of it in a fiery bed.
We hid in a big cave crowded with people from the camp. The rebels returned again and again, burning more sections of Shoklo. My mother later told me that I was a very good baby-in-hiding. Although I was not even a year old, I didn’t make a peep.
Thai security forces could not protect all the camps, so they moved about fifty thousand of us deeper into Thailand, into one large camp called Mae La. It was sponsored by the U.N. Other ethnic groups escaping repression moved there too, but mostly they were Karen refugees. We had to build a new house from scratch, again using bamboo for the sides and floor, and leaves from the palm trees for a roof.
The new camp, the place where I lived much of my life, was surrounded by barbed wire. We were not allowed to go outside the barbed-wire compound without a Thai ID. Thai IDs were very expensive, and we were very poor, so we could not leave. The U.N. provided the basics — rice, vegetable oil, beans, charcoal, and water — based on how many people were in the family. The rest was up to us. But the thing is, the free stuff they gave us was not enough to feed five members in a family. If you didn’t work, you didn’t have enough food, you didn’t have shoes, you didn’t have clothes, you didn’t have money to pay for a
n education. (We had to pay to go to day care and to school.) There was a limited amount of work in the camp. Very limited. So where else can you earn money to feed your family?
My mom was a librarian. She made five hundred baht, about twenty dollars, a month. She was grateful for her job, but it wasn’t enough to feed a family, so she also raised chickens and rabbits. My dad was a self-taught carpenter. To make money, he would sneak out of the camp and walk back to Myanmar. If he got caught outside the camp, he would go to jail or be shot. There were other dangers in Myanmar, like land mines and getting caught in the cross fire during an attack. But my dad went anyway and was gone for months at a time.
Somehow my mom always knew when my dad was coming home. I don’t know how she knew this, because we didn’t have a phone or anything. Me and my friends would wait for him at the barbed-wire gate. My dad was very generous. He always handed us some money, one baht, five baht. Then me and my dad would walk home together. Even though my parents had so little, they always found ways to provide for me and my siblings.
When I turned seven, my mom started teaching me how to do chores: get water from the public pump, make the fire for cooking, cook, and watch my little brother, and later, my other siblings. When Dad was home, though, he did those chores so that I had time to play. He worried about my growth because I was so skinny and little.
The camp was divided into zones: Zone A, Zone B, et cetera. Each neighborhood had its own grocery store, but the items there were expensive. Zone C had a big morning market where food and clothes were sold. Thai farmers sold fruits and vegetables. We lived in Zone B. We woke up early in the morning to walk to Zone C in time to get the vegetables. Usually there was a long line at the water pumps, so some people created their own private wells. We didn’t have our own well, but one of our neighbors did. They let us come by to shower.