Category: News

One year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Afghans in Charlotte are in legal limbo | Axios Charlotte

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By Danielle Chemtob

Read more: Axios Charlotte

Tahira Askari and her family arrived at the chaotic scene at the Kabul airport last August, with a crowd of people surrounding the walls, and Taliban surrounding them.

The teenager heard gunshots and people calling out for help. She saw people being beaten and lying on the ground, injured.

They slept on the street outside the airport for two nights. Finally, after moving to another location, they managed to board a plane to Qatar, then Germany, then Washington, D.C., then Wisconsin, before they became among the over 1,700 Afghan refugees to arrive in North Carolina since last August.

Now 17, Askari lives in Concord now and dreams of studying journalism in the U.S. But like tens of thousands of Afghans now in the United States, she faces a ticking clock with her legal status. And she is bogged down in a years-long legal process to obtain citizenship.

What’s happening: The U.S. completed the withdrawal from Afghanistan a year ago today, Aug. 30, and has resettled more than 76,000 Afghans in the country.

Initially, North Carolina was set to resettle 1,200 refugees but that swelled to 1,730, according to the latest figures provided by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Charlotte agencies resettled 298.

Why it matters: In that year, Afghans in Charlotte and elsewhere have tried to build new lives for themselves, but their legal status is in limbo.

Context: Most Afghans have temporary status in the U.S. through humanitarian parole, which does not have a clear path to citizenship, and only lasts for two years typically.

Afghans can apply for asylum, and their cases will be expedited, receiving an interview within 45 days.

But it’s still a lengthy process that attorneys often assist with, which is a financial barrier for families that had to start over when they moved here. Plus, the nearest office handling the asylum interviews is in Virginia.

Once they receive asylum, they can apply for their green card after a year, and in four years they are eligible to apply for citizenship, says Rebekah Niblock, a staff attorney with the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy working for its Immigrant Justice Program.

While the asylum process is being sped up for Afghans compared to other refugees, it still means years of waiting and legal fees before they can become citizens.

Read more: One year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Afghans in Charlotte are in legal limbo – Axios Charlotte

Afghan refugees find ‘different world’ in Charlotte — and a new set of challenges | Charlotte Observer

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BY DJ SIMMONS AND WILL WRIGHT

Read more: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article264677989.html#storylink=cpy

Americans watched the Afghan government fall from afar. But for Bahroz Mohmand, the moment marked the high-stakes culmination of a plan two years in the making to relocate his family.

“Because of me my whole family — my brothers, my sisters, my parents, my in-laws — most of them were at risk,” said Mohmand, who worked as a translator for U.S. Special Forces. “Working for the army in Afghanistan was not easy. You’re basically putting your family and their life in jeopardy by working for them.”

Now, safely in Charlotte, Mohmand fears for his family’s future. Their work permits are set to expire in 2023, and the uncertainty of that leaves him wondering what will happen.

“If their work permits expire, they’re, of course, not going to let them work anymore, and then they’ll have no income and (will) be put on the street,” he said.

Tahira Askira, Mohmand’s niece, recalled the tense days in Afghanistan before she was evacuated last year.

Askira said she was out grabbing groceries with her mother and sister when they heard the Taliban took over the country. Soon, the day descended into chaos. “People were shouting,” she said. “Everybody was looking for a way to get back home.”

Askira was fearful. She heard from adults what life was like under Taliban rule. For two days, they were stuck at home as Taliban fighters surveyed the streets, looking for people.

Mohmand feared the worst. Through his job as a translator, he was given a pathway to citizenship and emigrated to America in 2012 through the Special Immigration Visa program for Afghans.

The program, however, didn’t guarantee their families similar avenues. And interpreters’ jobs often placed targets on their backs, as well as their families, Mohmand said.

Mohmand also garnered a higher profile after being invited to the White House in 2018 for a Medal of Honor ceremony for a soldier he worked with. During the ceremony, he was individually recognized by then-President Donald Trump.

While the moment was one of his proudest, it also placed his family directly in danger.

As Askira fled the airport with her family, all she was able to grab was a backpack full of a few belongings. Meanwhile, Mohmand stayed on the phone with the family and used Google Maps from his home in Charlotte to help them navigate to and through the Kabul airport. Askira spent almost two nights sleeping outside the airport before they were able to get inside.

“I was running the operation basically,” Mohmand recalled. “I was telling them where to go.”

Now in America, they face hurdles applying for asylum.

GETTING SETTLED

Rebekah Niblock, a staff attorney at Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, said applying for asylum is one of the more complex areas of immigration law.

Refugee resettlement centers such as the Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency contacted the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy to assist the influx of Afghan families. The center soon undertook the task of creating a program to link Afghan families to pro-bono attorneys who could help them with their asylum cases.

For Niblock, the case with Mohmand’s family is even more personal. Her father, a builder in Concord, has helped to house members of Mohmand’s family and is Askira’s neighbor.

”I feel the family is meant to be here,” Niblock said.

Niblock said a bill in Congress called the Afghan Adjustment Act could be key in helping these families have a direct path to citizenship. The bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress in August and would allow Afghans with temporary status to apply for lawful permanent residence.

“There’s precedent for the bill,” Niblock said. “If you think about the Vietnamese coming to our shores, we passed similar legislation to allow them to have more of a direct path to residency and citizenship status.”

Asylum cases could take years, Niblock said. Currently a special provision allows Afghan refugees to have their cases heard within 45 days of filing.

“But that means you need to have everything ready,” Niblock said. “That entails a detailed statement, corroborating evidence, sitting down the client and asking very difficult and traumatizing questions.”

Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article264677989.html#storylink=cpy

Afghans in U.S. await stability and immigration answers | WFAE

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By: Kayla Young

Read more: Afghans in U.S. await stability and immigration answers | WFAE 90.7 – Charlotte’s NPR News Source

A year after the fall of Kabul, Afghans who fled to the United States still face an uncertain future. Organizations such as the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy are now pushing for passage of the bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act and a pathway to citizenship.

When Taliban insurgents took control of Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul, in August of last year, Bahroz Mohmand watched the news in disbelief from the United States.

The 33-year-old interpreter never expected to see his home country revert to Taliban control.

“I was surprised. I was pissed off. I was sad,” Mohmand said. “It was a very difficult situation for me to basically calm myself down because I was worried about the family.”

Mohmand moved to the United States in 2012 under a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), made possible by his work as a Dari and Pashto interpreter for the U.S. Army.

“I was born in war. I was raised in war. I never saw the good side of my country,” he said. “The only time that it was good was basically when from 2001, when the U.S. Army came until, you know, August 15 that everything collapsed under the Taliban regime.”

He is now a U.S. citizen. But for many of the 76,000 Afghans who fled to the U.S. in the past year, their immigration options are more limited. Many fear eventual deportation, including Mohmand’s niece, 17-year-old Tahira Askari.

Askari described the chaos of her evacuation in her native language, Dari. Mohmand interpreted.

“Everything was falling apart. People were running around stores. You could see families getting desperate, separated from each other. Everybody was heading towards the airport,” she said.

Askari and her family boarded an evacuation flight to Qatar, then Germany and eventually reunited with Mohmand in Charlotte.

Mohmand says for Askari, life under Taliban rule is a foreign concept.

Read more: Afghans in U.S. await stability and immigration answers | WFAE 90.7 – Charlotte’s NPR News Source

Tahira, a 17-year-old Afghan evacuee and Advocacy Center client, shares her journey to the US and what it is like to live in legal limbo | Spectrum News

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When 17-year old Tahira Askari fled Taliban controlled Kabul last August, she did not know what life would be like for her in America. Tahira and her uncle, Bahroz Mohmand, a decorated Afghan interpreter who supported US military operations in Afghanistan for 10 years, joined Spectrum News on August 17, 2022. The two shared their harrowing journeys and the legal limbo Tahira and other Afghan evacuees now face as the Advocacy Center helps them apply for asylum. The two stressed the importance of the passage of bipartisan legislation known as the Afghan Adjustment Act. The legislation would provide a clear path to citizenship for Afghan evacuees, fulfilling a promise the United States pledged to keep them safe.

With Evictions Returning to Pre-Pandemic Levels, Charlotte Attorneys Describe Human Consequences

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By Sam Carnes, Queens University News Service

Evictions in Mecklenburg County have returned to pre-pandemic levels and are now averaging 2,500 per month, a rate that keeps Charlotte among the nation’s top cities for evictions, say attorneys with legal aid organizations that represent tenants. 

The most recent data from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts indicates a level of 30,000 eviction cases annually, said Isaac Sturgill, an attorney specializing in housing with Legal Aid of North Carolina. The Eviction Lab, a project of Princeton University, ranks Charlotte sixth in the nation for evictions. A 2017 UNC Charlotte Urban Institute report indicated that 28,471 eviction complaints were filed in the 2015-16 fiscal year.  

These rates have human consequences, said Toussaint Romain, who recently became chief executive officer for the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy. Romain recalls visiting Charlotte’s tent city of homeless people in August 2020. 

“We really saw whole families, like a mom and a dad and three babies who were living in a tent for the first time in their lives,” Romain said. “They were there because they worked in the service industry. And when COVID happened, shut all that down, and they were kicked out of their places because of not paying rent. … and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a 2-year-old baby, you know, that was homeless.” 

Sturgill and Romain are two of dozens of attorneys who represent people experiencing the worst consequences of the rising cost of housing in Mecklenburg County. Without a course correction in the cost of housing, these lawyers say, Charlotte risks becoming a city like San Francisco. 

“Charlotte is on track to be a city for white-collar professionals that make a certain income, [with] an underclass of people who serve the professional class,” said Ismaail Qaiyim, who founded the Queen City Community Law Firm and works with the Housing Justice Coalition CLT and the Latin American Coalition. 

Read more: Charlotte Journalism Collaborative

‘Break that vicious cycle. Lessons as public defender key to Toussaint Romain’s new role

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BY LAUREN LINDSTROM

Charlotte NC-As Toussaint Romain settles into his role as Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy’s new chief executive, the clients he represented for a decade as a criminal public defender are never far from his mind. When clients used to walk into his office, he could anticipate all the economic and civil matters that might have led them to his door. A past eviction, revoked driver’s license or unresolved immigration issue often lingered in a client’s history, threatening their economic stability.

Romain joined the nonprofit legal firm and advocacy organization in mid-May as its new CEO, a role he was drawn to as a way to tackle these upstream legal issues that often trap low-income people in cycles of poverty and thwart economic mobility. “Folks are desperate. They have criminal records, can’t get jobs, don’t have housing,” he said.

Romain, who was most recently deputy general counsel for Appalachian State University and spent a decade as a public defender in Mecklenburg County, said returning to Charlotte for this role continues the work he’s fought for his entire career — providing essential access to legal representation and resources for vulnerable residents to achieve upward mobility. “We’re really trying to break that vicious cycle by providing the resources, legal information and legal advice” that people need, he said.

Read more at: charlotteobserver.com

Q&A with Toussaint Romain: the new CEO of the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy | QCityMetro

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The Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy is a non-profit organization that provides legal aid to those who need it, but cannot afford it.

The organization recently announced that Toussaint Romain would be the new chief executive officer effective May 16.

Romain has been a public defender and taught courses in constitutional law and mass incarceration. He also participated in the Keith Lamont Scott protests of 2016.

QCity Metro sat down with Romain to discuss his role as CEO and his interest in legal advocacy. The answers below have been edited for clarity.

What will your role be as CEO of the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy?

We [Charlotte Legal Advocacy] have some very highly esteemed lawyers, paralegals and support staff. They will continue to do the individual representation, but also systemic advocacy. We have navigators who are getting into the community, meeting their needs, and putting a soapbox up by going to community centers and providing information and services. I look to do all of that.

But the biggest part of what I will focus on are the external relationships that this organization needs. There’s so much phenomenal work being done here. We need to tell our story and we need to really allow folks to know who we are so that they understand that their needs are getting met through our services, either through individual clients or through potential donors and supporters.

Read the full Q & A on qcitymetro.com

Toussaint Romain will lead Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy | WFAE 90.7

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Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy has a new chief executive officer. As a former public defender, law professor and civil rights activist, Toussaint Romain is no stranger to the legal system.

In his new role, Romain says there are three core values that the Advocacy Center is focusing on, which are part of the organization’s vision to build a just community.

“The first is safety which is especially important,” Romain said. “Second is economic security so people can take care of their basic needs. And finally, stability because we want to make sure folks know that they’re in an environment where it’s going to be stable and that they’re able to move forward with the hope of upward mobility and economic opportunity.”

Romain says the Advocacy Center partners with other organizations so they can offer more than legal services.

“We’ve been involved in the community since 1967 to really help that child, that mother, that immigrant, that person with disabilities, that veteran and that senior,” Romain said. “That’s what’s most important, and we get to do it on a daily basis.”

Read the full story on WFAE.org

“Helps Everyone”: Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy appoints new CEO|Queen City News

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CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – After a nationwide search of over six months, Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy found their next leader in their very own backyard. Toussaint C. Romain has dedicated his professional life to the people of Charlotte – as a public defender, a civil rights leader, and a community organizer. And he has big plans for the center even before his first official day on the job begins next Monday, May 16, 2022. 

Romain is the first person of color to stand at the center’s helm. He says its mission is to promote justice within its core values of “safety, economic security, and stability.” 

It sounds like an enormous task for only a staff of 40 but they also have formidable reinforcements of approximately 500 pro bono lawyers from various industries across the county. 

See the full coverage on Queen City News

Celebrating Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Historical Confirmation

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Today marks a historic day as Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed to the Supreme Court as the first female African American Justice, a long overdue first.  Of the 115 justices that have served on the Supreme Court, only seven have not been white men.  Jackson is undoubtedly a powerful symbol of what can and should be achieved by women of color.

Jackson’s presence on the Court will widen the perspectives that are brought to judicial debate.  Her own lived experience as a Black woman enriches her assessments of day-to-day life in the United States, providing a necessary counterpoint to the historical white male majority.

As an organization that focuses on fighting for justice for those that need it, not just those that can afford it, the Advocacy Center sees Jackson as a fellow champion.  At her confirmation hearings Jackson said, “I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building, “Equal Justice Under Law”, are a reality and not just an ideal.”

Jackson served as a public defender for nearly nine years, choosing to defend men and women who could not afford a lawyer but deserved justice.  She also comes to the Court having served as a U.S. District Court judge for eight years, an area of legal work only shared by one other Justice, Sonia Sotomayor.  Her experience as a trial judge provided her with the unique opportunity to directly confront the impact our judicial system was having on people’s lives. Jackson understands the importance of seeing the humanity of all people in the courtroom, an understanding that will no doubt affect her legal interpretations in the highest courtroom in our country.

Most importantly, Jackson’s prior rulings have shown a dedication to upholding legal protections for people with disabilities, workers, immigrants, and those most vulnerable.  These are the men, women, and families we fight for every day, who will be impacted by Jackson fighting for them too.