>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

>> Our connection this hour was made earlier this month when the Trump administration appeared to change course on their policy regarding the admission of Afghans to the United States.

The administration resumed processing what are known as SIVs Special Immigrant visas, designed for Afghans who supported the American military and often risked their lives to do so.

But look closely, and the move to resume processing SIVs might look like something else.

The advocacy group AfghanEvac calls it a ruse designed to make it look like the administration is open minded about our Afghan allies.

In reality, processing does not equal admission, and the Trump administration appears to be admitting zero new Afghans, even the ones who rode alongside US soldiers, provided translation support mission aid.

The president of AfghanEvac Shawn VanDiver, said in a statement earlier this month, quote, we are seeing Afghan applicants instructed to schedule visa interviews, travel across borders and present themselves at U.S.

Embassies without being told that under the current Trump policy, those applications are expected to be denied.

End quote.

In response, the Trump administration's assistant secretary of State for population, Refugees and Migration said that the Afghan travel ban remains in effect.

Per the executive order signed by President Trump, and that consular officers are not required to inform applicants in advance whether they have any chance to be admitted to VanDiver.

This is a betrayal.

He points out that not only are we as a country not admitting our allies, but we're misleading them and making them spend whatever scarce resources they have all on a wild goose chase.

The Trump team sees this very differently.

Vice President JD Vance heavily criticized the Biden administration's handling of Afghan SIVs.

Vance called it an opening of the floodgates to unvetted refugees.

During the last presidential campaign, Vance promised that a new Trump administration would crack down on what he called Civ fraud.

The result so far is shutting off the Civ process almost entirely.

Let's talk about it with our guests this hour.

Let me welcome the guests in studio first.

Ellen Smith, founder and executive director of Keeping Our Promise.

Ellen, welcome back to the program.

>> Good to be back.

Thanks, Evan.

>> Remind listeners what k o p Keeping Our Promise does.

>> We resettle the special immigrant visa holders who worked for the US military, State Department and USAID programs.

>> Stephen.

Katie is keeping our promises.

Housing coordinator, welcome to the program.

Thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

And let me welcome on the line with us, Sean VanDiver, president and founder of AfghanEvac.

Sean, welcome back to the program.

>> Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Very excited to be here today.

>> And let me welcome as well on the line.

Naweed is with us and Naweed is, um, someone we're just using one name here who is going to be able to talk, I think extensively about what's going on with SIVs.

Um, was an operations and interpreter and Naweed.

Welcome.

Thanks for being with us.

>> Thank you so much for having me.

>> All right.

So briefly here in studio, there's a lot going on in the weeks to come with keeping our promise.

But it seems to me Ellen Smith, that what is happening less is the actual active welcoming of SIVs.

Is that correct?

>> Yes.

Um, we've only had one couple who arrived in January and we have another couple arriving shortly.

Um, and I can get into the details later, but unfortunately they're going to be arriving without their child.

>> Without their child?

Yes.

How old is the child?

>> Nine months old now.

>> Oh my goodness gracious.

Um, just briefly describe for our audience you've been doing this for years now.

We've had conversations over the years on not only what you're doing in Rochester, but what the, what the landscape for SIVs is in this country.

What was a typical month or year like for keeping our promise before the second Trump administration?

What is it now?

>> Right.

So two years ago, we helped to resettle 97 families in Rochester.

Last year, it was 94 families.

Um, we have a current caseload of about 560 individuals.

Um, and I mean, it's slowed.

There are still a lot of needs, obviously in our community, um, for our Afghan friends.

Um, but we're not seeing any arrivals except for a couple that's going to be coming and people are reaching out and desperately asking for help.

And I have to say, there's nothing we can do right now.

>> Okay.

How, how do you describe the Trump administration's policy on this.

>> Heartless and a betrayal to our allies?

>> Mhm.

Uh, Stephen.

Katie, how do you see what's going on right now with this administration and with the slowing of, I mean, almost, almost stopping from what I can see of SIVs coming in.

>> It, it is a giant betrayal.

So I am an Army veteran.

I deployed to Afghanistan a couple of times.

Um, these folks risked their lives for us and for our objectives in their country.

They fought alongside us.

They participated in the democratic government that was set up.

Um, and now they are facing huge threats from the Taliban government that we left in charge.

Um, you know, there is a huge moral imperative to help these folks.

There's also just a realist foreign policy imperative to help them when we show our allies that we're willing to abandon them at the drop of a hat, what that tells any future allies is that we're not to be trusted.

Um, the military, the US government, the Foreign Service can't operate in places in the future in that manner without people who will work alongside us.

Um, and so even just beyond the moral imperative of these people helped us risk their lives for us, risk their families for us.

Um, and now we're abandoning them to, you know, the Taliban, uh, it's, it's terrible.

>> Let me briefly just ask you about what the vice president has said.

The vice president might argue that there are many people who served honorably from Afghanistan, who did it to help the United States and should be respected.

The vice president has also indicated he doesn't believe that we can fully vet what potentially would be thousands more SIVs coming.

And the vice president is saying that even if we are right, 99% of the time, that 1% that we mistake could put Americans at risk.

And his intention and the Trump administration's intention is to protect Americans on the American homeland.

>> So one thing to keep in mind is that under the Trump administration, they enacted what was called enhanced vetting, and that was done under Trump's first administration.

So when the vice president says that, essentially what he's saying is that the Trump administration's own vetting process isn't good, um, I held a top secret clearance for my entire Army career.

I can tell you that these men and women are very heavily vetted, uh, in ways that are almost impossible to achieve.

Um, you need letters from your employers, you know, your former employers in Afghanistan.

You need letters from the chief of mission in Afghanistan.

All of these things are very hard to come by.

Um, there's a lot of paperwork involved.

There's a heavy amount of vetting going on with every SIV.

Um, and then more to the point, is it a through line that we see through so many discussions about immigration to the United States?

Well, what if there's one bad person, right?

There are bad people here already.

The the statistics show us that native born Americans commit crimes, including violent crimes, at a much higher rate than immigrants.

Um, the idea that we're going to let someone in, um, who might be dangerous is first of all, wrong because there's so much vetting that goes on.

And second of all, it ignores the fact that we enable dangerous people here in America all the time.

Anyway, um, you know, so it seems like what they're saying is it's okay for Native Americans, by which I mean people born in America, native born Americans to be dangerous.

But it's not okay for someone to come here and possibly be dangerous, even though we've vetted them very heavily.

I'll tell you this, the vetting that happens for these SIVs far more stringent than what you see for a pistol license here in the state of New York, far more stringent.

>> So let me turn to Shawn VanDiver.

And I've been reading some of Sean's statements about what's happened in the last month, and I want to give you the floor, Sean, to kind of describe to our audience how you see it as the president of AfghanEvac.

But first of all, tell people what AfghanEvac does.

Sean.

>> Sure.

So thank you all so much for having me.

You guys have such extraordinary folks there in Rochester and Ellen and Stephen and the entire Keeping Our Promise team.

Um, AfghanEvac focuses on keeping the promises that were made to our wartime allies and mission partners in Afghanistan, right over a 20 year war that includes SIVs.

It also includes refugees and their family reunification of these folks who were able to make it here during the chaotic withdrawal.

Um, and look, the truth is, is that I'm going to attack a couple of these things, if that's okay.

Um, Vice President Vance is what we in the military call Blue Falcon.

Um, it's a acronym B f the first B is buddy.

You can use your imagination for the F. Uh, JD Vance doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's calling SIVs refugees.

They're not refugees.

Uh, they're in fact, special visas for people who stood beside us for our longest war.

Right?

These are folks, like Steven said, who have been vetted through and through.

And one way that they were vetted is we handed them firearms and said, go fight a war for us.

And they stood beside us and they fought a war for us.

Um, the truth is, is that right now, you covered this at the top right now, the administration has been forced to continue s I v processing, which does not mean visa admission.

Right.

So they're getting chief of mission decisions out the door.

Uh, they are people are getting those in their emails and in those emails, it says now you need to schedule a visa interview.

So it's like the best day of this person's life since they've been hiding from the, the Taliban for four years.

Uh, they go to schedule their interview and they get it scheduled.

No problems.

Nobody tells them you're about to get denied.

And it's a denial with finality.

So you'll have to reopen a visa application.

Uh, they spend all of their money, uh, all the money that they can scrounge together to get over the border to Pakistan or wherever else in the world.

Uh, and they go in and do their interview and then a big denied stamp goes on and they're like, what do you mean?

And then they later learned that this was that as soon as they got chief mission approval, the people asking them to schedule their visa interviews knew that this was going to be a denial, and nobody told them.

So they spent all this money, wasted all this time, and now there's a visa denial on their record, which is not helpful for if they ever try to go and do this again.

So I really think that what the Trump administration is doing right now is a wholesale betrayal of not only our Afghan wartime allies, but all of our allies around the world and of our veterans and frontline civilians and anybody who's been involved in this work, uh, who has worked alongside these folks and, and made a promise, right.

Or, and it's a betrayal of anybody in Afghanistan who believed in the idea of democracy, stood up and said, we'll stand with you.

You told us we'll stand.

You'll stand with us.

Uh, and it's so curious that right now, after President Trump went and started this war in Iran, uh, then he came out and said, hey, Iranian refugees, if you help us, we'll stand with you.

And I'm sure that everybody was like, yeah, okay, we saw what you did with the Afghans.

So it's a direct impact on our national security right now.

And it's all just it's all simultaneously surprising.

And the least surprising thing, because we saw that he shut down s I v processing during the last administration until the courts told him that he had to restart.

>> So, Sean, a couple things about that.

Um, and then we're going to talk to Naweed a little bit more and there's an event to tell you about coming up for copy.

And I know Ellen Smith has some strong views about where she wants to take k o p no matter what happens and what, frankly, what the needs are in our community.

Because Rochester has been kind of per capita punching above its weight big time as a community that has welcomed these refugees.

But Sean, just a couple of things here.

So this is an administration that's made clear that they don't want waste, fraud and abuse.

So they don't want fraud.

They're worried about fraud in the CIB process.

Okay.

But if I'm running a company and someone says to me, hey, wait a second, um, you said you weren't going to hire anybody and now you're not even interviewing people.

But our board says you should restart the hiring process.

And we say, okay, we announced we're restarting the hiring process and we interview 100 people in the next week, and then a thousand in the next month, and nobody gets a job.

And then internally, the executives go, well, we were never going to hire anybody anyway.

We just wanted the board to know we started the process.

That's what's kind of what looks like it's happening here.

And if the administration says, look, we never have any intention to bring on anybody from the SIV process, then why waste the the money, the time, the resources to even go about it?

This is an administration that says they hate waste.

Why go about it?

Unless they would say, Sean, maybe they would say we're court ordered to do it, I don't know.

How do you see that?

>> They might say that, but I think that, frankly, we just have to say that it's not that they believe fraud, waste and abuse is a bad thing, right?

They spend scores of money on things all the time that have no benefit to the United States.

Um, uh, Steven earlier talked about the vetting.

There's thousands and thousands and millions of dollars spent on vetting every year.

And it is a good process.

It wasn't changed under Biden didn't make the vetting less good or less stringent from the Trump administration before.

In fact, they added on to it.

We built the AfghanEvac, uh, along with the Biden administration, built the safest, most secure legal immigration pathway in our country's history.

We called it enduring welcome.

That's what was bringing 5000 Afghans a month out of Afghanistan.

And if Stephen Miller really cared about legal immigration, then we would just keep doing that.

And we would probably apply that further to other issues, right?

This could be the gold standard.

Uh, Stephen also talked about vetting, uh, you know, being very stringent.

He talked about it, uh, in terms of, uh, you know, it's, it's a lot stronger than most cases.

It's stronger than when we vet somebody to join the military.

It's stronger than we vet somebody to be a police officer.

It's certainly a lot stronger than when we vet people to be politicians making these decisions.

And I just I just don't believe that that anybody in the Trump administration actually cares about fraud, waste, and abuse.

Otherwise they wouldn't be doing all sorts of things.

They just they just issued a, uh, an ad recruiting new people to join the State Department.

They probably wouldn't need those new people if they hadn't fired scores and scores and scores of people solely because they disagreed with it.

That is the only reason that those people got fired.

>> Okay.

And then the last thing, but the last thing before we turn to Naweed here, and I want to ask Sean and our guest in studios about this.

Look, I've gotten emails from listeners who've heard the conversations with SIVs over the years, and there have been some of the most memorable conversations we've had, some of the most truly, genuinely heartbreaking and moving discussions on this program.

But some listeners say you cannot have this conversation today if you don't ask Sean about the story of, um, Rahmanullah, who was, uh, a 29 year old former CIA trained, zero unit fighter.

He helped secure the Kabul airport.

He was a CIA ally, and he came to the United States as a, as a part of a welcome program, operation Allies welcome in 2021.

Granted asylum of April 2025, and he ended up, uh, in this past November shooting two National Guardsmen near the White House, killed 20 year old Sara Beckstrom, critically injured 24 year old Andrew Wolff.

And some of our listeners say you can't talk to Sean VanDiver and not bring this up.

That's what the vice president's worried about.

Yeah, that's what this administration.

>> Let's talk about that.

>> Okay, so go ahead.

>> I'm really glad that you brought that up.

Um, the story of Locke and Wall is the story of how we treat people that fight our wars, right?

That man has got to be held accountable for his actions.

No question about that.

But to hold an entire population accountable for the actions of one man is absolutely insane.

We didn't kick all the veterans out of the United States when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, we didn't kick all the veterans.

Nobody came knocking on my door trying to kick me out of the United States.

When in last September, two veterans, 13 hours apart, in two separate states, committed mass shootings.

Um, look, Locke and Wall should not have done what he did.

That it is like he's got to be.

He's got to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Right.

But if we're not talking about one, how did he get that gun?

Nobody seems to know how a guy who doesn't read, write or speak English, who only speaks Pashto, who doesn't read or write any language, is illiterate.

How did he get a gun in in the United States of America?

Second question.

When we went to him at age 15, when the United States government went to him at age 15 and said, hey, here are all these, here's all this training and these firearms, go fight our warfare's go kill people, kick in their doors and murder people in their houses.

For us, and we'll take care of you.

How did he get left behind?

With no help?

How did he face the system?

That that made it harder and harder and harder for him every day?

Now, I don't have any empathy for him.

But I'll tell you what, what he exhibited was classic signs of PTSD that we've seen veterans exhibit before.

And that's not a commentary on veterans.

That's a commentary on how this country, the United States of America, takes care of the people who fight our wars.

If you're willing to spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on the front end on your cool bombs and missiles, the things that I used to use, uh, in the Iraq war, then you got to be willing to spend the money to rebuild people when they get home.

And that includes everybody who fights our wars.

So look, yeah, ask me about that.

And I will tell you a story that that is a question of mental health, not of Afghans being bad.

Afghans are not responsible for his actions.

He is responsible for his actions.

>> Yeah.

And I really want to comment on this.

The other the other thing that came up in this case was the fact that for 6 to 8 weeks before this tragedy happened, that people were begging for help for him, that they his wife, volunteers who had worked with him were asking the the previous resettlement agency for help.

And through traditional resettlement agencies, those services are 90 days.

And they were saying, we can't help.

He's he's out of our system now.

And I'm not saying that we have not.

We have had, um, families or SIVs with mental health problems here in Rochester.

But the key is, is that we know these families.

We stay involved with them.

We don't say 90 days of service and you're done.

And we try to get them help.

But what we saw in the case is that people were begging for him to get help, or begging for someone to intercede, and they couldn't get help.

And it's a problem in our mental health system in this country, period.

Um, but as Sean said, it's also a problem where we've seen veterans with problems.

I think I have family in Lewiston, Maine.

Um, when and that was a veteran that did that shooting in Lewiston.

And that's the issue is the mental health services that are involved for the people who served our country.

>> And it goes back to, Sean.

>> I want to jump in on this real quick.

Oh, go ahead.

>> It goes back to Sean's point in.

My earlier point is that it's a different standard.

We've set up two different standards, right?

As Sean said, um, you know, when a veteran, an an American military veteran commits some sort of heinous act, we don't hold the entire veteran community responsible.

When a politician is found guilty of 34 felonies, we don't hold their entire party responsible.

But as soon as it is someone of a different race, a different national origin, a different religion, then we paint the entire population with that brush.

Uh.

It's disingenuous.

It is frankly bigoted.

Um, it's unacceptable in a pluralistic society like ours that's set up that says, you know, we all belong here.

Um, and it is, it's, it's a betrayal not just of them, of these brave Afghan men and women, but just like Sean said, it's a betrayal of service members.

And to Ellen's point, you know, that that mental health, um, you know, I, I suffer from PTSD from what happened to me in Afghanistan.

I get therapy two times a month.

I have medication to help me manage my symptoms.

I have been in an intensive outpatient PTSD.

Uh, uh, program.

Shout out to River Hospital in Alexandria Bay.

Um, and it has been incredibly helpful for me.

It has allowed me to continue living my life.

They don't get that right.

And, and so, uh, and again, people born in this country commit mass shootings all the time.

And when we talk about access to firearms, we get shut down and say it's a mental health issue, but then we don't provide mental health help for people that need it.

And we and we hold people to different standards.

And so it doesn't seem like anybody is actually in the government is actually really interested in solving the problem more in placing blame.

>> Sean, do you want to add there?

>> Uh, I do, I do.

So we talked a lot about the individual responsibilities and all that, but what we haven't talked about what I haven't seen a lot of news coverage on is the fact that Doge came in and deconstructed all of the domestic security apparatus programs that protected us from these mass shootings and protected us from people who are starting to radicalize or starting to go off the deep end.

And and leaning towards community violence.

Uh, they defunded all the programs for that at DHS in the community.

Um, who knows if these mass shootings that happened this year would have been caught?

It used to be that they got caught all the time and less were happening.

Right?

But now we're seeing more.

And and frankly, I think that this one would have been caught had Elon Musk not gone.

And absolutely destroyed all of those programs, reallocating all the resources to pick and gram up at her restaurant where she's been working for 20 years, uh, picking somebody up from Home Depot or picking her wartime allies up from court when they're following all of the rules.

>> After we take our only break, here's what we're going to do.

We're going to have Ellen Smith tell you a little bit about what keeping our promises doing now.

And they've got a pretty important event coming up here.

Um, and we're going to take a look ahead here.

You heard Elon mention the resettlement happening now is minimal.

Uh, one couple in January, but there are hundreds of families and individuals in our communities.

Of course, there's the need for ongoing support.

We'll talk about that.

And I'm going to ask Naweed a little bit about how he sees what's happening and what has changed here.

We're talking to the team from keeping our promise.

That includes Ellen Smith, the founder and executive director in studio with us, um, alongside Steven Katie, who is their housing coordinator.

And Sean VanDiver on the line with us, president and founder of AfghanEvac.

We'll come right back on Connections.

Coming up in our second hour, we welcome author Brit Bennett, the acclaimed author of The Vanishing Half.

She's coming to Rochester for an event next week.

But first we talked to her about this book that has made so many waves nationally shortlisted for the Women's Prize for fiction, the story of two daughters, twin daughters, one who lives her life as a white woman, the other as a black woman, and the effect it has on their lives.

We'll talk about it next.

Our.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

Bobjohnsonautogroup.com and Fred Maxik, now part of Withum, a national advisory and public accounting firm.

The local team continues its decades long commitment to serving Western New York with advisory, tax and assurance services.

More at william.contact.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

There's an event coming up on May 30th.

Ellen Smith from keeping our promise.

What's happening there?

>> Uh, it's our annual gala.

Um, it's our main fundraiser for the year, and it's at the Irondequoit Country Club.

Uh, you can go to our website at Keeping Our Promise dot and I hope you can join us.

Sign up there and we hope to see you on May 30th.

And it will raise funds to help with housing, food for our families.

We're doing driving lessons for our SIVs and also their wives so the family can have more stability in their life here in Rochester.

>> And when in a moment, I'm going to ask you about the full landscape of services you guys are involved in, because I think people may hear the show and go, well, I guess there's no SIVs process anymore.

It's not fully true.

But I mean, it certainly is massively limited under the Trump administration.

But before we do that, tell me, um, Ellen, tell me a little bit about Neukgu.

>> Uh, well, uh, let's see.

Um, the person that he worked with, her name is Robin, and she connected with me maybe a year and a half or two years ago and said that his case had fallen through the cracks and she didn't know what to do.

Um, and she worked for the United States government and still does.

So we're not going to use her full name, uh, and she was just asking for help and would we help resettle him?

And I just said, look, like we are, we're filled up.

You know, we did 94 families last year.

And, um, I didn't know him.

He didn't have a Rochester connection.

We were focusing on family members of SIVs who were also SIVs, and that's who we're resettling.

Or someone with a Rochester tie.

And she just said, you know, please help.

So so we did.

And, um, I, I am so happy that Naweed is part of our community.

And when we needed additional help at keeping our promise, um, and he needed a job, we brought him on to help us with operations and Naweed is a Pashtu Dari and Turkmen interpreter, and he can help with DSS paperwork and help our families overcome the language barriers that they may face.

Um, if they weren't a combat interpreter.

So and people need to realize there are a lot of people here who don't speak English.

We are helping them to stay in English classes and learn English.

But they were, for instance, security guards.

Um, at our embassy.

Or they might have been housekeeping or a driver, uh, a position where they did not need to know English to serve the United States.

So Naweed has come on and it's genuinely a pleasure to work with him.

>> And the interpretation services here, um, kind of reflects some of the work that we did for the Judge Advocate General's Corps, which is the legal branch of the United States Armed Forces, interpreted for criminal prosecutions in Afghanistan.

So Naweed has sort of been there and done that.

And and now he's here.

How are you doing in Rochester?

Need how are things going for you?

>> Thank you so much.

Uh, actually, I'm doing very, very well and everything is going well.

I'm so happy for everything that I have received from Shelby and from other, uh, organizations, especially Miss Ellen helped me too much in this way.

Uh, right now I'm settling like, very well, and everything is going very well.

Uh, my children is going to school, and I'm released from the stress, from the fear, from the, from an situation.

So I'm seeing things differently here and I'm so happy being here.

And I really appreciate those who, uh, help me to get here to get to this safety and make a new life here for myself, even for my children and my wife.

Everything is awesome, going well.

>> So Naweed you've been in Rochester for exactly how long now?

>> Uh, it's almost seven months.

Not more than seven months.

Yeah, I arrived here around June.

Something, 2025.

Yes.

>> Okay, so coming up on a year?

Not quite a year.

And I, you know, I'm curious naweed in general, do you feel and does your family feel welcome here in the United States, in the Rochester area?

I'll start with that question.

Do you do you all feel pretty welcome here?

>> Uh, actually, we were stuck in Afghanistan, as Miss Ellen mentioned.

She helped me with, uh, arriving here and really appreciate it.

So we receive a lot of support here, especially from copy that.

Uh, we welcomed an airport and we moved to an apartment which had everything in it, and we received food, bus passes, phone, any kind of support that I and my family were in need.

Uh, we received that support and yeah, we received.

>> Okay.

Have you had any issues with Americans who have?

Has anyone said anything to you that indicates they don't think you should be here?

>> No, I didn't hear anything like this.

So most of the time when I'm like in, uh, donation management, when I pick up some donations, when I meet New Americans, when I introduce myself, they, they welcome me always.

And they say, you did a good job.

So you deserve to be here.

Yeah, I really, thanks to all of them.

Yeah, yeah.

>> And Neuwied, one of the things we talked about earlier this hour was the fact that the Afghans who are in limbo, the Afghans who are waiting to find out if they can come to the United States often we've heard these stories for years now.

They might risk their lives.

They might have to travel in dangerous conditions.

They might have to be separated from their family for a short or a longer period of time.

They might have to spend any last money.

They have to try to travel and get to a place where they can do these interviews and get vetted and get the opportunity.

And now we're finding out that the Trump administration has essentially said, yes, we will start that process again of interviewing, but no, we're not going to accept anybody.

So we will put you through that process, but you're going to get denied, even though the families and the individuals don't know that.

Can you talk to me?

Naweed, about your feelings about that, considering how much people and families have to risk to even try to get in position to get an SIV to come to the United States?

>> Uh, most of the families that I know, uh, I mean, if they were in my Facebook friends or those who I was in contact with them, they risk their life, uh, with supporting US missions in Afghanistan.

And after waiting for many years, still they are in limbo.

And I'm sure as it was my own personal experience that I, during the last five years, I was just hiding from everyone.

And I was like isolated from the society, just keeping myself on, like keeping myself safe and hiding from the society, not walking around and spending whatever I had at home.

Even I sold some of my home stuff to cover my family expenses.

Like me, there is a hundreds or maybe more than that.

People are still at the same situation and they don't know what, uh, uh, what will be their destiny in upcoming months or days.

And they don't know what's going on.

They are in limbo and just seeking for safety and they're begging.

And I follow most of the Facebook pages, like AfghanEvac page.

Those people are begging for their safety.

They do not have a job.

They cannot work.

The current system over there because they have a background with supporting U.S.

Army and U.S.

Missions in Afghanistan.

And that's a big risk for them.

They cannot work to support their family, even if whatever they have at home or in their bank accounts, they have to spend them for covering their families expenses for their children.

And some of them, they just borrow or sell their properties to get to another location or another country to pass their interview and get their visas and make it to us, to the safety.

But unfortunately, the recent decisions of the government of the United States made this also impossible.

So even those those those who sold their property and they moved to another country and were waiting for their visa interview, but they start they still they're stuck there and they even cannot go back.

And they have to wait and see what's going to happen with them.

Unfortunately, this is the most worst situation that I have seen with these guys because they deserve better than this, uh, they supported, uh, US forces in a very difficult time, in a time that nobody would dare to go to that province, even for, for an ordinary trip.

But these guys or those guys supported during tough time when everywhere was like fight everywhere was like full of danger.

They accept that.

And they supported us.

Missions and most of the US Army's.

But still they are in limbo.

And I'm very sorry for that.

>> So Ellen Smith listeners might hear the story and say, but wait a second, I thought the Trump administration has cut the faucet off.

How did he get to come here?

In June of last year?

What's actually going on?

>> Well, because at that time, the Trump administration had not cut off the the SIV visa process.

They cut off.

Um, I mean, the refugee programs closed.

Um, we're privately funded.

So we did not, we weren't affected, um, directly by the government cuts, but we were affected indirectly in that we ended up being the only show in town, so to speak.

And we're also, we resettled, um, more SIVs, uh, than anywhere else in the entire state of New York, Monroe County is it?

And it's because of keeping our promise.

Um, we had the highest number of resettlements.

Um, but anyone who had a visa in hand was fine.

And the, the, um, processing to get the visas was still going on until November when the National Guard shooting happened.

Um, and that, that brings me to a story of just how crazy this process is.

Um, unfair.

And we, we had a couple with a young baby get their visas, uh, in the third week of November and the baby's visa had a spelling error in it.

So they were told to that the US embassy in Pakistan would make the correction on the visa, and they could come back and pick it up.

And then the National Guard shooting happened.

And if you did not have a visa in hand.

When this presidential proclamation went out, you were not allowed to come to the US.

If you were an SIV.

And so they denied this baby a visa.

>> Eight months old.

>> The baby's now nine months old at the time.

Six months old?

Yes.

They denied the six month old visa.

And so we've been working on this case and, um, speaking with the couple, with the former US military officer that was involved or is involved in this case, and the decision has been is that the couple is going to come, the baby's going to stay with sisters and grandparents, and we hope in three years we can work this out under a different administration.

The other thing that I found out is we were we've been working with Congressman Morelli's office on this case, and there was talk about what do we do for DNA, right, in case we have to prove that this baby is their baby, even though we know the baby is their baby.

And so we looked into DNA testing and I had said, okay, well, we need 8 to 10 hairs of the baby with the root ball.

So make sure that you can do that.

And then we were told, no, no, there has to be a chain of custody and it's got to be a saliva test.

So they would have to go back into Pakistan, which they can't do, um, to get that test.

And it would have to remain in US custody.

So right now we're just going to forgo all of this.

And I know hope is not a plan, but we are hoping that we can get this worked out.

>> I'm confused about something.

Okay.

And it's going to if I ask this question, it risks coming off as sort of snarky.

And I don't want to be about an issue this serious.

If I'm running a government and we're trying to vet or intensely vet, as Stephen said, and I see someone who might be coming to the United States and their name is spelled differently on different documents, I can see that being a red flag and say, wait a second, are we sure we have the right person?

Is this just a clerical error, or is this a legitimate, legitimate question when it's a baby?

I don't know what vetting a six month old looks like.

I don't understand the idea that says our vetting process will not clear this six month old, because we have to make sure anyone who comes to this country is not a threat.

That is a six month old baby.

What am I missing?

>> I mean, the embassy admitted that there was a spelling mistake.

I mean, there's nothing to vet here.

It's just that that baby, they did not have the visa in hand when this policy was put in place, or the order was signed by President Trump.

That's the only issue.

>> They had a visa in hand.

But the embassy had had committed a spelling error on the visa, which they then said invalidated the visa.

>> Okay.

But again, I, I, I, if I were running an organization, I'd say, okay, that's that 34 year old with a spelling error, right?

I want to make sure I know what the heck happened there.

Absolutely a six month old.

>> But that goes back to what I'm saying.

It's it's not about actually vetting.

That's not what the issue is for, for this administration.

And I think that's pretty clear.

>> Okay, so now let me get an email here and I'm going to kick this over to Sean.

Jerry wrote in to say, um, SIVs should have to learn English before they come here.

So that's from Jerry Shawn VanDiver.

Uh, what do you think?

>> Look, I want to talk about the case that we were just talking about a little bit, and I'll get to that.

Um, during the last administration, people had a lot of complaints about the Biden administration for good reason, right?

Uh, they messed up the withdrawal coming out.

It was awful.

They built this system that worked really well.

In fact, at at the State Department, they had a team called the care team coordinator for Afghan relocation efforts who took care of these things.

And when there were spelling errors, they would get them fixed.

And the administration was forward leaning.

They wanted to help because it would be egregious and unethical and awful to separate a baby from their families, to present these families with an impossible choice.

What we're seeing right now over across every metric, uh, related to Afghans or any other type of immigrant is an administration who wants to make life as hard as possible.

Just this week and just last week in Connecticut, uh, a young man named Ryan was taken a 19 year old high school student.

And you might be wondering, why is he 19 and still in high school?

Well, because he was stuck out of school for a long time, hiding from the Taliban.

Um, he was poised to graduate high school in May.

And Ice went and snatched him up for no reason.

They don't have any good reason.

And to make matters worse, his dad had just gone through this about a year before.

Um, so now he's sitting in an Ice detention facility in Massachusetts, the same one his dad was in for a long time.

His dad was released, uh, after a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Um, and the fact that that was granted means a federal judge said that this administration had violated Zia, his dad's due process rights, constitutional rights, the fact is, that's happened over 5000 times, and they're still doing it.

And it's because right now, part of their strategy is to to keep immigrants away and to keep people from coming here is fear.

And they're demonstrating that they don't care what the judges are saying.

They don't care what Congress is saying.

They're just doing whatever they want.

And it's really, it's really horrific situation.

Uh, remind me the question that was asked.

>> Jerry just made a statement saying that's I v should have to learn English before they come here and they're admitted.

>> Why SIVs have done more for the American public than most Americans that I know.

Um, they've, they believe in the idea of America.

Most of them do know English before they get here.

Now there are some jobs where they didn't need to know that.

But that's, that's just a ridiculous requirement.

Uh, and totally, fundamentally arbitrary requirement.

Um, and you know, we're not, we don't tell the military that they have to learn whatever language is the native language in the country that we're going to go fight in before they go over there.

Right?

This is just an asinine comment.

And Jerry, if you don't like hearing that, I, I don't apologize.

I think that that's just a hard truth.

>> But is it a good idea?

Is it is it helpful for SIVs to learn English?

>> Yeah.

I mean, that's part of the resettlement process.

They get English classes and most of them are learning it on YouTube and on through their experience in the United States or before, right?

Like our military went overseas.

And what they did is they went around to places, found people who spoke English to act as interpreters and translators and work on the bases.

And then it grew from there.

Right?

So like, the thing that's so funny to me about a lot of this is that there's just all these misperceptions, right, that people don't understand.

And rather than educate themselves on it, they, they repeat these, uh, talking points that they hear.

What I would encourage any listener who has any questions about this, go to afghanevac.org slash explainers.

And there's a ton of information on there that sort of breaks down at a very high level.

And then it gets more granular.

There's fact sheets on the shooting, there's fact sheets on all sorts of stuff.

And we create these because these are complex issues.

And we're not like mad at anybody like Jerry.

He's like, well, they should learn English.

That's what we have the resettlement system for, right?

They do learn English.

They come here and they learn how to drive.

They learn English, they learn all these things.

Now, it would be better if there was more organizations like Keeping Our Promise that provided the more detailed, granular, uh, sort of empathetic and customer focused services.

Than the larger resettlement ecosystem.

But the baseline is, is decent if it's well funded.

And what we should do is fund it better, we should restore USAID, we should restore all these things that made America, uh, unimpeachable around the world and how we show up and help.

>> Uh, okay.

Now, before we lose the hour here, a couple things with Ellen in Studio Ellen Smith is the founder and executive director of Keeping Our Promise.

So with that stream of incoming SIVs nearly choked off right now, you still have a lot of work to do.

What are you working on.

>> Right now?

We have a lot of work to do.

Um, you know, our, our goal had always been to resettle 50 families.

And we, like I said, we did 94, um, last year and 97 the year before.

Um, we brought in, uh, more people than actually capacity wise, we could handle.

We've got, um, four full time staff members, including myself, and we're working on housing.

So as we all know, housing is, um, for Rochester standards, very expensive.

Um, and we are acting almost like a section eight program right now for housing.

So yes, the families have to pay a certain amount for housing.

We may make up a 300 or $400 difference a month, um, for their house.

Um, because a family of, of six has to have a three bedroom house.

There's no getting around it.

A family of five has to have a three bedroom house.

By our standards, by New York state standards.

So we are helping with that.

We're helping anyone who wants to go to vocational these vocational programs at Oasis, like the electricians program, the mechanics program.

We will help support them through these programs as long as they're meeting what we say.

DSS requirements, Monroe County social service requirements, we will help them through training so they can get a skilled trade.

We will help them get a driver's license so they can get to work.

We will support them.

And one of the things we insist on is if their English isn't very good, they have to go to full time English class.

It's a requirement of ours.

Um, we've, we are helping our families with, with mental health issues and with health issues.

You have to remember that these families have been in hiding since 2021.

And many have severe health issues that that they need help with right now.

>> And so the event that's coming up is May 30th.

That's the big gala.

>> It's our road to Resilience gala.

>> And you're bringing in Sean, is that right?

>> Yes.

Sean is joining us.

And the theme is rooted in community.

Um, I will tell you how successful I believe our program is since 20 18, 61 families that we helped resettle have purchased homes 61.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

You like that number?

Sean?

>> I sure do.

That is so incredible.

>> Congratulations, Ellen.

>> That's so wonderful.

And part of it is this holistic.

>> Program that we offer.

>> Go ahead.

We're down to our last.

>> Minute and.

>> Say, yep, go ahead.

>> I say that I've watched Ellen operate at the White House.

I've watched her operate all over the country.

You guys are so lucky to have her there in Rochester.

Uh, I'm jealous that we don't have somebody incredible as her in San Diego.

Um, every community needs an Ellen.

Every community needs a Keeping Our Promise.

Every community needs people that are sticking up for folks who stood up for us.

>> Well, if, uh, if you're interested in the gala, it's May 30th.

All the information is at keeping our.org.

Yes, it's all right there.

All the information about what they do and what they need is there as well.

Um, last 30s Ellen, I know it's a whole conversation separately, but watching the Iran war and thinking about regime change and thinking about Afghanistan and seeing the Taliban in power in the way they are, are you more hopeful or less that, um, that we're going to be helping the people who need it the most?

>> All I could think of was when the Iranians were asked to stand up the young people and take back their government with no support, all I could think of was, don't do it.

>> Because you're going to get killed.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah.

I mean, we.

>> Saw that was my concern.

>> Saw thousands murdered by their own government in January, correct?

Yeah.

It is.

It is a tragedy for the people of Iran, no question, who want a new regime.

But that's a conversation for another day.

Now you're up to speed on what Cop is doing.

Ellen Smith Founder and Executive Director thank you for being with us.

I want to thank Steve and Katie, who is the housing coordinator.

Thanks for coming in and sharing a little more with us here.

Thank you.

Uh, hey, Naweed, thank you for talking to us on the phone.

Let's talk in person sometime.

Good luck to you.

Naweed.

>> Thank you so much.

I really appreciate your time and your support.

>> You got it.

And Shawn VanDiver, president and founder of AfghanEvac, he's coming for the gala in May.

Sean, thanks for the time.

As always.

>> Thanks so much.

Always a pleasure.

>> More Connections coming up in a moment.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link at wxxinews.org.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Excellus.

Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Working with members to find health coverage for every stage of life, helping to make care and coverage more accessible in more ways for more people across the Rochester community.

Details online at excellus.

B c com and the Climate Solutions Accelerator.

Hosting a two day interactive summit exploring how energy is produced, distributed and used, and how those choices shape the region's future.

April 24th and 25th at the Convention Center.

Registration at Climate.org.