The suspension is particularly devastating for the 10,000 to 15,000 Afghans who, according to #AfghanEvac, had been fully vetted and were preparing for flights. It is also a severe blow to an estimated 200 active-duty U.S. service members who are trying to get their families out of Afghanistan.
A U.S. Army paratrooper at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, who asked to be identified by his code name, Mojo, said he had spent the past year helping his sister and her husband apply for refugee status to enter the United States from Afghanistan.
Mojo, 26, was an interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He said he joined the U.S. Army two years ago after leaving Afghanistan in 2021 under a program that grants visas to Afghans who directly served the U.S. military or government.
His sister and brother-in-law, both physicians, are in hiding, fearing retribution from the Taliban because of Mojo’s military service, he said. They recently completed the lengthy refugee vetting process and were approved to resettle in the United States, he said. All that remained was to arrange a flight out of Afghanistan.
“We were so close to bringing them to safety — and suddenly it all got shut down,” Mojo said by phone from Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg, where he serves in the 82nd Airborne Division.
