Afghanistan Interpreters and Canadian veterans said that despite the announcement last week that they would accelerate their resettlement, the Immigration Bureau failed to disappoint the Afghans who worked with Canada in this war-torn country.
Raheem served as an interpreter through NATO Canadian soldiers in 2016-17. For security reasons, his full name has not been made public, he said Taliban On Monday, soldiers razed his father’s home to the ground to punish him for serving the coalition forces.
He lives with relatives in Afghanistan. Like the other two former translators interviewed by the Canadian media who are already in Canada, he is worried about the safety of his extended family as the Taliban occupy large areas of the country.
“It’s also dangerous for them to live here,” Raheem said of his parents, sister-in-law, and four nephews and nieces between the ages of 11 and 23.
“If they catch anyone in my family, I believe they will retaliate against them.”
He said that government officials told him that he must provide documents of the destroyed house to prove that his parents were threatened, but that the property was located in an area controlled by the Taliban and that the fugitives could not actually enter it.
On Wednesday, the Immigration Service issued an application form that needs to be filled out within 72 hours, but the veteran group stated that it is unclear whether the siblings, parents and extended family members of applicants threatened by the Taliban are eligible for resettlement .
However, in an email sent to interpreters obtained by Canadian Press, the federal government stated that the plan only applies to Afghans who are “indispensable to Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan” and their families.
Family members are defined as spouses or common-law partners, children 21 years of age or younger, or adult children who “have been largely dependent on their parents for financial support since the age of 22”.
“This is not a way for the Taliban to draw a line between who is included and who is not,” said Andrew Lask, co-founder of the advocacy organization Not Left behind.
“When you start to think about these restrictions, these timelines, and these obstacles, you put a lot of lives at risk. Ethical leadership is not from the government now; it comes from the veteran community, which doesn’t feel right,” Lask said. Her sister was the first female soldier in Canada to die in battle.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday that the government’s top priority remains to help Afghan staff and their immediate family members.
“But I also emphasized that we will continue to expand the family reunion program applicable to all Canadian immigrants and permanent residents. This is something we will continue to pay attention to,” he told reporters in St. John’s, NL
The Immigration Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Robin Rickards is a veteran who served three times in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2010. He said that he and other current and former soldiers received a lot of emails and phone calls. To seek help from the newly issued application of the Canadian Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.
Entering 6 months of 2021, the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan hit a record high
It is published in English, requires up to 10 different document scans, and requires Adobe Acrobat in a country with low literacy rates and inadequate Internet services.
“We are really drowning,” he said. “If they contacted any individual involved in this event before starting this event, we could have instructed them on how to build an orderly process that would not cause chaos locally.”
The new immigration measures were first introduced by three cabinet ministers on Friday. After the sudden withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in recent weeks, the Canadian veteran community has become increasingly worried and frustrated, which has given the Taliban more courage to step up its offensive.
The newly-occupied territory includes parts of the southern province of Kandahar, where Canadian troops spent the longest time during their 13-year mission in the country and fought the bloodiest battle since the Korean War.
Now, veterans say that as the Taliban expand their sphere of influence and seek retaliation against their collaborators, those Afghans who support them and their families are facing the threat of retaliation.
“We are now living in a hell that may come from this world or another world,” said Noori, who arrived in Canada in 2010 after working as an interpreter for the Canadian Armed Forces from 2006 to 2009.
He said that his three cousins and one uncle were assassinated by Taliban militants. His parents, four brothers and five sisters are still in Afghanistan, but under the new measures, no one is eligible to join him in Canada.
For security reasons, Noori, who did not disclose his full name, said that since the Taliban recently attacked a police checkpoint less than 100 meters away from his home, he has been unable to sleep normally.
“All night. My family could not go out. They were just begging for God’s protection. But no one could go there to help protect them,” he said.
“The Taliban know that our family supports the Canadian military.”
Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said on Friday that the government has set up a local team dedicated to identifying people who may be at risk from working with Canada, and immigration officials will fast track the asylum applications of an estimated “thousands” of eligible people. .
Mendicino also encourages Afghans who now live in Canada to contact his office directly if they feel that their family members returning home are at risk and meet the conditions.
Previous interpreters said they had done this, but encountered automatic answering machines, automatic response to e-mails, and unclear standards when answering the phone manually.
Khan was a former translator for the coalition and Canadian forces in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2012. He said his father was assassinated in 2009 “because of my work”.
“They will kill my father, they will kill my brother, if they can’t find me, they will kill any of my family members.”
© 2021 Canadian Press
