An Afghan Interpreter’s Flight to America

Janis Shinwari, the Afghan interpreter I wrote about a couple of months ago, finally had his U.S. visa restored, and he’s now in Virginia with his wife and two children. That’s a success story of sorts. But the effort it took to get them out of danger and over here shows how deep the betrayal of Afghans and Iraqis like Shinwari really runs.

During his seven years as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, Shinwari saved the lives of several American soldiers. One of them was Matt Zeller, a former intelligence officer who is still in the Army reserve. When the American Embassy in Kabul mysteriously revoked Shinwari’s Special Immigrant Visa shortly after issuing it, in September, Zeller pushed to get people in Washington to pay attention. According to Zeller, the State Department regarded the affair as closed; Shinwari’s chances of getting to America were almost zero. But attention and, especially, pressure from half a dozen members of Congress whom Zeller contacted—including Earl Blumenauer, of Oregon, who called for hearings, and Jim McDermott, of Washington, who spoke about Shinwari with a senior State Department official—made it impossible for the government to ignore the case. Since Benghazi, State has been extremely sensitive to congressional inquiries, and the small storm kicked up by Zeller’s frenetic lobbying on Capitol Hill forced the plight of this one Afghan, among thousands like him, to the attention of top officials.

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