What is your background, and what brought you to this area of law? 

As a young person, I was always very interested in history, politics and law. I decided to study political science at NYU as an undergrad and really enjoyed the wide range of classes I was able to take there and took a lot away from classes focusing on international politics and theory. Then in my junior year, 9/11 happened. That really shaped the way the rest of my undergraduate career would evolve, as, suddenly, everyone in the world was talking about Islam, terrorism and Afghanistan. My family and I came to the U.S. from Afghanistan when I was very young and sought asylum here. I had both a lot to say and a lot to learn.  

Because of the events at that time, I decided to double major in Middle East Studies and became very involved in student activism and took on leadership positions within student organizations. Then, the U.S. invaded Iraq in my final year of NYU, and again, we were out in the street educating folks and even went to Washington, D.C. a few times to protest the war. When I went on to law school, the transition into human rights was easy and natural. 

What was your experience like with the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic at Cardozo? 

Through the clinic, I was able to learn about human rights issues in different parts of the world than what I had previously studied. The project I was involved in focused on the state of reconstruction and reconciliation in post-genocide Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the 1990s during the dissolution of Yugoslavia [now seven independent states], the worst fighting took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina as the Serbs of Bosnia laid siege to Sarajevo for nearly four years – the longest siege of a city in modern times. The U.N. had set up safe zones throughout the country, attracting people throughout the country seeking safety to go there for refuge. It was an absolute travesty that those same U.N. peacekeepers then allowed Serb troops to walk into the safe zone of Srebrenica, round up and execute 8,000 Bosnian men and boys. 

Through the clinic, I had the opportunity to travel to the site of the genocide and interview survivors, including the women who witnessed it all, government leaders and others involved in the reconstruction. There has been a cold peace since the 1990s, and many reported that they were afraid that the fighting could return. Their stories were harrowing and have shaped the way I view conflict and war. Their stories remind me to always focus on the real human cost, and not just frontlines and borders, and look at the narrative from a wider lens.  

It was also really interesting to hear the perspective of U.S. intervention in Bosnia and how locals overwhelmingly supported the military support they received from the Americans at the time of the conflicts in the 1990s and since. In Bosnia and in many parts of the Balkans, they really respect the American ideals of freedom and democracy and have named a number of their streets, squares and other public spaces after our politicians. This was in stark contrast to how U.S. intervention was being viewed in the context of Iraq, for example. 

What did you do after you graduated from Cardozo? 

I graduated soon after the great recession. The legal field had been significantly impacted and wouldn’t recover for many years. I was lucky to get a clerkship right after graduation, but after that, I left law for a few years. I found my way into the non-profit world, managing an economic development program for Catholic Charities Brooklyn & Queens for at-risk youth. While I was there in 2015, the Syrian refugee crisis was everywhere on the news. Along with everyone else, I watched footage of refugees making their way through Turkey and into Europe – on little boats, buses and on their feet. European governments promised safe passage to Syrians, and Germany promised to take in one million Syrians.  

Pretty soon though, the story began to take a more nuanced form. There were others joining Syrians in their journey westward to safety – among those were Afghans. The situation in Afghanistan had been deteriorating for many years since the U.S. landed troops on the ground in October 2001, with the Taliban increasingly attacking and bombing both everyday Afghans and those who worked with the Afghan and Western governments. In another sense, the few years of relative peace and security for Afghans were an anomaly. The country has suffered constant war and instability since 1978. My cousin and her family had been living as refugees in Iran and were among those asylum-seekers traveling westward. They’re now happily settled in Germany.   

There was something within me that was ignited at that moment. In the face of so much horror and suffering, I realized there was an opportunity there for me to help ease some of the human suffering I was witnessing. I had both studied the region and its languages and personally lived through the refugee experience. It didn’t take me long to figure out the rest.  

I planned a volunteer trip for March 2016 to one of the Greek islands that were processing refugees who came through Turkey. By the time I got there, though, the European Union government had implemented a new agreement with Turkey that prohibited passage to Europe and instead set up a refugee camp system and informed those who arrived that they had to apply for asylum in Greece. My volunteer work then shifted into working with Afghans and Iranians at newly established refugee camps in Greece. I served as a translator, volunteered in the Red Cross tent and helped create a little school for the children there.  

What did you do after this volunteer trip? 

Shortly after returning from my volunteer trip, I decided that I needed to go back to Greece because the stories I had heard and the need that I saw compelled me to take a more drastic step. I received a year-long legal fellowship with Blossom Hill Foundation and spent the first three months of that time in Athens working with different Greek refugee organizations and projects. After that, I spent the next three months in Lesvos, where I worked with HIAS at the Kara Tepe refugee camp. I finished up my year in Istanbul, Turkey working with Refugee Rights Turkey on appeals for people who were denied Refugee Status Determination by UNHCR. It was by far the most meaningful and fulfilling professional experience of my life. 

What was your career like when you returned to the United States? 

After I returned to New York, I was hired at Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of New York, where I went on to become a supervising attorney. I worked with a much larger variety of clients than what I was used to in Greece and Turkey. Most of my caseload were clients from West Africa and Central America, but I also had Uyghur, Turkish and Afghan cases and clients. I was dedicated to ensuring that they had the right to live safely and peacefully in the U.S. 

After my time at Catholic Charities, in April 2021, I become the director of immigrant services at Mercy Center, in the South Bronx. Traditionally, Mercy Center has provided critical services to that community through its naturalization and DACA program. During my time there, I aimed to expand the program to work on other types of immigration applications, such as work permit renewals, marriage-based petitions and Green Card applications. 

My time at Mercy Center was cut short. By August 2021, Afghanistan was back in the news, and the images of the botched U.S. evacuation haunted me. I remember seeing images of people dangling from military planes and falling to their death. I have a lot of family who are still living in Afghanistan: aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids and grandkids, and we all panicked. The Taliban had taken over the country again like they had in the 1990s, and everyone was terrified of what would happen to them now that the Americans were leaving once and for all. -I tried my best to advocate for my family through my personal and professional connections, but the scenes of people falling off planes and the suicide bomb at the international airport in Kabul confirmed that everyone was completely lost. I became involved with volunteer attorneys and advocates serving Afghan evacuees. And when I saw that organizations wanted to hire immigration attorneys with experience working with Afghans, I felt once again like I had a calling. 

What is your current position?  

I am the managing attorney for Project: Afghan Legal Assistance at Human Rights First. Our work includes coordinating all the different legal stakeholders in the U.S. that are involved in serving Afghan evacuees, including law firms, legal services providers, refugee agencies, law clinics and solo attorneys. To date, more than 76,000 Afghan nationals have been evacuated from Afghanistan to the U.S.  

In addition, we have an intake form that we try to share widely through word of mouth and visiting bases or other places where refugees might be. Some 3,000 individual requests have been made for legal assistance, and we are working through that list, one by one, to provide pro bono legal assistance to those individuals. We have law firms, law schools and other organizations helping with this endeavor. The work I do here is meaningful on a personal level, and I feel like I am making a difference on a professional level. We are always looking for more law students and attorneys to help in this endeavor to screen clients for immigration remedies, with limited application preparation, and with pro bono representation in their asylum interviews. We welcome anyone interested to reach out to us at PALA@humanrightsfirst.org.

On a personal level, I speak about the issues affecting Afghans to raise awareness and make sure they do not fall from the headlines. One of the most difficult pieces of this work is remembering how many people we left behind. The majority of the people who assisted with the U.S. mission in Afghanistan were NOT evacuated, and they are in extreme danger now. Thousands have been summarily executed, with many reports of rapes, torture and other war crimes. Since August 2021, more than 45,000 applications for humanitarian parole have been filed for the most vulnerable. This is an application that would allow the grantee the right to travel to the U.S. These applications require proof of vulnerability, fiscal sponsors in the U.S. agreeing to support the applicants and a staggering $575 application fee per individual. The average yearly income of an Afghan is $500. To date, only 5% have been decided, and of those, 85% were denied. Many of those people have been killed waiting for their decisions.   

When we compare this to the Ukrainian parole program that was rolled out, about one-third of the 100,000 have already been filled, the applications are free, there are no requirements for an interview, background check or individual showing that the person is specifically in danger. Visas are emailed directly to their phones. We are hearing of Ukrainians entering the U.S. 12 days after they complete the form. We are so appreciative that our Ukrainian brothers and sisters are being welcomed to the U.S. so quickly and easily, but Afghans wonder where the double standard comes from. 

Do you view your work with refugees and immigration work as relating to atrocity prevention? 

Absolutely. When we get a Green Card or asylum status for our clients, it is not just for them. With that grant, they are able to bring their spouses and children to safety. Every person we help is a lifeline that can anchor their families here and bring them to safety. We can’t rescue 30 million people, but we can help by working on the cases we have one at a time.