From Mazar to Manhattan: How a young couple escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan

(CNN) — Deep in the jungle in Panama’s infamous Darien Gap, a lawyer and a dentist from Afghanistan kept pushing.

With 77-pound packs on their backs, Ali, 29, and Leila, 27, whose names have been changed to protect their identities and legal status, already had faced up to political upheaval in their native country. They had crossed an ocean and set off on foot, never knowing where they’d next sleep or when or what they’d next eat.

Now, it was nature threatening to upend their goal of reaching the United States, with a promise of opportunity and freedom that has enticed generations of immigrants from distant shores.

“It’s very dangerous,” Ali recalled. “There were animals, wild animals and birds. We heard their sounds and saw them up close.” The trek was complicated. “In some places you’d get stuck, so you’d stop and push things out of the way,” he recalled.

Even searching for food was difficult, especially for Ali and Leila, who keep their diets halal for religious purposes.

“All we would say is chicken with rice,” when searching for food, he said. But the basic provisions were not enough to keep them in good condition. “Our health was not in good shape.”

“Mosquitoes bit our feet and hands, we were sunburned, and we had stomach pain, back pain and foot pain,” he said.

“We had no more patience.”

And the worst was yet to come.

Millions flee Afghanistan

Three years ago this week, Ali and Leila faced an uncertain future in Afghanistan. The US withdrawal, carried out in August 2021, was nearly complete, the re-emergence of the oppressive Taliban regime was steadily taking shape and the nation was turning back the clock, away from democracy and toward autocracy.

They withstood the rule of the Taliban government nearly five months before deciding to escape the country altogether, risking their lives in hopes of crossing the US border and somehow finding a way to avoid deportation or death.

“We tried to stay but we couldn’t do it anymore,” Ali said.

Ali and Leila had a comfortable life in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. They both spent most of their upbringing in an Afghanistan occupied by US troops, marking a new chapter for Afghanistan following decades of division and war following the fall of the monarchy, the rise of communism under the Soviets and later the extremist takeover by Al-Qaeda. In the years since, more than 6 million displaced Afghans have been scattered across the world.

In January 2022, Ali and Leila obtained three-month visas to visit Iran but it did not feel like home.

“The people are good but the government discriminates,” Ali said, referring to how Iran, a Shia-majority country, shows favor toward one group over another.

“The Sunni sect doesn’t have a lot of freedom there. They don’t have Sunni mosques; all of the mosques are for Shias,” he said.

After living a year in Iran, they applied to travel to Brazil, receiving six-month visas. Five days after arriving in South America, they set course on a 33-day journey to the United States, becoming part of the migrant surge at the southern border.

Different paths, different immigration challenges

Under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome, more than 88,500 Afghan nationals immigrated to the US, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. Among them, 77,000 were paroled into the US “on a case-by-case basis, for urgent humanitarian reasons, for a period of two years.”

When people come through a guaranteed program like Operation Allies Welcome, the US government provides funding and immigration assistance. But for those who cross the southern border, asylum status is not expedited, Dylanna Grasinger, vice president of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, told CNN.

“That’s a different set of challenges,” Grasinger explained. In many cases, people wait several years only to be denied asylum.

The committee has processed approximately 100 asylum applications for Afghans who have crossed the southern border since August 2021.

For many other Afghans such as Ali and Leila, who were not eligible for the program, emigrating was a dangerous undertaking as they continued moving north, hoping to make their way into the US by illegally crossing the southern border, with no guarantee they make it or be allowed to stay.

Google Maps, backpacks and a dream

“We put up a tent, slept in it, and then headed up the next morning, Ali recounted. “On the fifth day, we reached the end of the jungle of Panama and immigration gave us a form stating we could exit the country of Panama and could enter the neighboring country of Costa Rica.”

Migrants were “Chinese, Afghan, Brazilian, Peru, people from Ecuador, from every country,” according to Ali.

“The one country that gave us the most trouble was Mexico,” Ali said. “We couldn’t withdraw our money from the banks, and with no money to pay for a hotel, we slept on the floor of the airport for two nights.”

“If you had money and didn’t pay, they told us they would deport us.” They would take money by force, he said. It is still unclear to Ali who those people were, whether they were government officials or the mafia, he said.

Ali also recalled being mugged three times in Mexico and being left without money. “They would pull our hair, our ears, they would take our phones, jackets and pants.”

But all along the journey, their fellow migrants helped each other, as they kept heading north. For the final stretch toward the US-Mexico border, they and a few others along the journey rented a van together. At the border crossing, they paid for the ride, walked from the car to the wall and climbed over it.

“I didn’t get hurt but I just fell down one time,” he said about the climb. “Our feet were swollen.”

Both Ali and Leila had no fear of police presence. In fact, they wanted to come face to face with the authorities. “We had lost sight of fear,” Ali said. “When we got to the other side, US police was standing there and said to us, ‘Welcome, welcome.’”

After two days of searing heat and cold nights of misery but having freedom by all other counts, they were led to a camp staffed by US immigration officials. Sixteen months after fleeing from their hometowns, they had reached America.

“They gave a two-year visa to Ali but not to Leila,” Ali said, laughing. “I don’t know why. They only documented us as one person.”

They were sent to multiple destinations in San Diego County before being flown to New York, first registering with other migrants at a midtown Manhattan hotel.

When they ended up at a school on Staten Island, men’s and women’s quarters were mixed, posing a challenge. “We’re religious, we’re Muslim and we can’t sleep with our spouses in front of 30 people,” Ali had told them.

The situation forced the couple to leave once again, landing back at a hotel for four months, until they were told to vacate.

A new home in New York

They turned to a new Afghan friend and stayed at their home, which was under construction. Ali and Leila slept there on cardboard for two months.

Today, they live in Harlem. They are both working, have a steady flow of income and live in peace.

They have obtained asylum through the help of an attorney, though their careers are still in the air. Leila can utilize her dental skills in the US and begin by working at a dentist’s office as an assistant, Ali said.

For him, however, his law degree from Afghanistan and lack of fluency in English does not translate to a job as an attorney and if he were to attend school, he would not be able to work enough to earn a living.

If Ali could go back in time, would he have stayed in Afghanistan or made the journey? He would not change a thing.

“We are happy a thousand times over because a future is attainable here,” he said. “Any right that an American has, we have that right too,” he said. “Here, everything is fair for everyone.”

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