Afghan women who fought with US military seek legal immigration status

The Afghan women believe their service in Afghanistan has earned them the right to stay in America permanently

Before her country and her life were suddenly and fundamentally changed in 2021, Mahnaz Akbari was the trailblazing commander of the Afghan National Army’s Female Tactical Platoon, an all-female squad that accompanied elite US Special Operations troops as they carried out daring mountain missions, hunted Islamic State combatants and freed captives from Taliban jails.

Akbari, 37, and her soldiers did so at great personal risk. One woman was shot through the neck, suffering a fractured skull. Another was killed shortly before the fall of Kabul. And after the Taliban took over the country, many members of the platoon were forced to flee to the United States.

Now, Akbari and other members of the Female Tactical Platoon are embarking on another mission: working to convince Congress that their service in Afghanistan has earned them the right to stay in America permanently.

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“Our missions were for big targets: a Taliban commander or a Daesh leader,” Akbari said, using another name for the Islamic State group, during a recent interview at her apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland.

On Thursday, Akbari and a group of other women from the Female Tactical Platoon met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to try to revive stalled legislation to address their and other Afghans’ precarious immigration status. The soldiers are in the United States under a two-year humanitarian parole that is set to expire in August. That would end the women’s work permits, forcing their new employers to terminate their jobs and leaving them in a legal limbo.

Sen Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn, said she was taking the lead on a revision of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which died in the last Congress for lack of Republican support.

That bill, which would have created a legal pathway for permanent residency for Afghans who had risked their lives to help Americans during the conflict in Afghanistan — as translators, drivers and fixers — stalled out amid Republican concerns about vetting.

The measure, which required additional security checks, was modeled off laws enacted after other humanitarian crises, like the Vietnam War.

It also would have created a pathway to permanent authorisation for four specific groups: the Afghanistan National Army Special Operations Command, the Afghan air force, the Special Mission Wing of Afghanistan and the Female Tactical Teams of Afghanistan.