Working for over three decades at Chabot College, which serves many immigrant communities, my colleagues and I taught and developed support programs for Afghan students meeting them at the often-challenging crossroads of their lives. We bore witness to their struggles and successes as they and their families became woven into the very fabric of our community. Many are now medical workers, skilled technologists and teachers, as well as elected American political leaders who give back to their communities.
After two National Guard soldiers were shot in Washington, D.C. last week, several U.S. pundits and politicians were quick with their descriptions of the alleged attacker. They erroneously assumed that he brought his "culture" or "society" to the United States. "You are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies... At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands," said White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller on X.
When Rahmanullah Lakanwal came to the U.S. from Afghanistan he appeared lively and full of hope, but over the course of years, he slipped into isolation and was prone to taking cross country drives without telling his family, according to a volunteer who worked closely with his family. Lakanwal, an Afghan national, is accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers on November 26. One of those soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, died from her wounds.
Pakistan announced it would close all 54 Afghan refugee villages across the country as part of the campaign it began in 2023 to push out what it calls illegal foreigners. These include the villages in Kohat, where Meer and his family live. How can I uproot everything when we were born here, lived here, married here, and buried our loved ones here?
Packs of wild dogs roam around desolate wastelands; toxic chemicals spill out into the street, with corrugated metal sheets and slapdash factories scattered around. It's like a shantytown, he says. However, once he sets foot inside some of these factories, he reaches for a different cinematic comparison. This time he's thinking of the torture-horror film Saw, as he witnesses Afghan refugees working and living in conditions that he says fit the UN definition of modern-day slavery.
Before the Taliban takeover in 2021, Sharif worked in Afghanistan. When the group took Kabul, he and his family fled to Pakistan. Having previously worked for international governments, Sharif is being sought by the Taliban. Years ago, the German government had assured Afghans who had worked for the Bundeswehr, German press outlets, and human rights NGOs, that they would be admitted to the country. Sharif's application was approved, but the process has dragged on for an agonizingly long time.
