ATLANTA — Moeen Amini lived in constant fear.

He worked as an interpreter for the U.S. military in his home province of Paktika in Afghanistan.

With the rising terror of the Taliban, Amini was at risk every time he left home.

“For those who had been working for the U.S. government and the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, it is very hard and almost impossible for them to live and survive in Afghanistan,” Amini said. 

Prior to the U.S. preparing to pull its last group of soldiers out of Afghanistan Aug. 30, 2021, the Taliban had already taken over most of the country and many Afghanistan residents had been flocking to the Kabul airport, desperate to escape.

But by the time Amini and his family had arrived in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, in mid August, the Taliban had already taken over the city. Amini described it as a “real horror movie” as people were dying trying to get into the airport.  

“We really lost hope to live,” Amini said. “We faced a lot of Taliban checkpoints. I cannot explain how hard it was facing those people. You know, 100 people having guns and all this stuff and stopping us and asking us, ‘Who you are, where are you going? And why are you leaving country? Are you people the U.S. military supporters, is that why you’re leaving the country?’”

Amini and his family also feared their documents indicating U.S. employment would make them targets as they sought refuge.  

“We really didn’t know what should we do, like should we throw out the documents to not have an ID card,” Amini recalled “… If you throw it how (would we) get there in the airport, how to prove ourselves that we’ve been working for years for the military. And if you don’t throw it, we are facing threats because people will kill us or harm us.”

After days of bunking at the airport, Amini, his wife, two young children and two teen nephews whose parents were left behind in the crowds rushing the airport, boarded a plane. Ten more family members boarded the overcrowded plane to safety, he said.  

Luckily, Amini and his family’s ties to the U.S. government allowed him to be among the more than 120,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan by the U.S.; Americans, those with a Special Immigrant Visa, and Afghans who were employed by the U.S. government and their direct family members were priority evacuees. Nearly 80,000 evacuees were Afghans.  

In December, Amini and his family ultimately resettled in the Clarkston area of metro Atlanta, which is known for its large Afghan and immigrant population. 

He immediately began looking for work now that he bore the responsibility of  taking caring of nearly 15 family members, and as the sole English speaker.

“I started working with a construction contractor (as a a helper). And he was paying me in the daily, sometimes it’s $80 or sometimes $100 and that was two months for me and for my families and that’s how I started here,” Amini explained. “I tried all the different shops, different restaurants near me different gas stations near me. And I even told them that I can work for you for any hourly pay you provide me but nobody was willing to hire me.”

For those who have settled in the U.S. since August of last year, it’s still a work in progress as language barriers are common for most, and the jobs and education they once had in Afghanistan are often not compatible.

Inspiritus is the designated resettlement agency for Alabama, and is also a lead agency in Tennessee and Georgia; Georgia also a top state in the South for Afghan resettlement, primarily in the Atlanta and Savannah areas.

Aimee Zangandou, executive director of Refugee and Immigrant Services for Inspiritus, said while the goal of finding permanent housing has been accomplished for its Afghan clients, the organization is now focused on the “long-welcome” which includes getting them to work. 

More than 1,700 Afghans have resettled in Georgia and nearly 70 in Alabama since August 2021. At least 70% of Afghan adults resettled in (mostly Birmingham) Alabama and Georgia are working, though most positions are entry-level, Zangandou said.

“The rest of them, we’re working with them to get them the first job in the U.S. and part of the next strategy is trying helping them get back into the career that they had in Afghanistan, which is going to take a long time, but we’re focusing on upscaling and career certifications,” Zangandou said. “We have some people (who) were like pilots, lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists – those things take time and they may not really fully get back into those fields.” 

Many have found jobs in hospitality, working hotels or manufacturing jobs, some making as little as $12 an hour and few up to $33 an hour, Zangandou said.  

“Most of them are entry-level jobs and that’s what we’re focusing on, getting their credentials certified and trying to evaluate them to see if they can get into better jobs or upgrade,” she said. “This is their first job in the U.S and it’s not going to be your ideal job. It’s not going to make as much money and you’re probably not going to like your job, but it’s just the first job in the U.S. so we’re working on getting them in upgraded and something that’s more sustainable.”

Inspiritus, like other resettlement groups, helps provide training services to obtain employment and provide certificates. Zangandou recalled the group recently matching a former Afghan pilot with a mentor in Savannah for training to gain certification to work in the aviation field. 

As of May, Amini said he is proud to have obtained a job as a recruiter for a consulting firm based in Atlanta.  

“I’m satisfied … when I came here, I didn’t lose hope. I didn’t give up I started working with the general labor and finding an opportunity for myself now I’m a recruiter here,” Amini said. “Like the Afghan people, they have tried working in the general labor anywhere and now they have opportunities. And now they have people in organizations that are trying to find opportunities for them and trying to reach out to them to give them the best opportunity.”

Amini credits the U.S. government, resettlement agencies, nonprofits and volunteers for sustaining refugees like his family until self-sufficiency is obtained.  

Organizations are still expecting to receive and assist more Afghans in the coming months, though this time around is expected to be less chaotic as last year. 

In 2021, during the mass evacuation of Afghanistan, U.S. resettlement agencies were tasked with ramping up operations after many had downsized and cut staffing and resources in previous years.

“All of these organizations have really had to scramble to gear up to receive the Afghan refugees because under the Trump Administration, the number of refugees who were resettled in the U.S. drastically decreased and so many of these affiliate agencies had to lay off staff because there were no refugees coming in, so now they’re having to gear up again and that’s been a challenge,” Lynda Wilson, president of Alabama Interfaith Refugee Partnership, said in September 2021.  

Zangandou said the sudden influx of Afghan refugees resulted in the need for Inspiritus to increase its capacity by more than 200%. 

“This never happened in the history of resettlement,” she said. “We’ve had to hire really, really quickly, train people very quickly. It wasn’t perfect but we’re very proud of what we’ve done and the response that was provided.”

Hogai Nassery started the “Afghan American Alliance of Georgia” page on Facebook to gather community support for Afghan evacuees in August last year, and has since established it as a nonprofit.  

The group has still been providing furniture, clothes, toys, household utensils and other donated items to nearly 90 families in the Atlanta area. But as the need for physical items is dwindling down as most families are fully settled in homes, language barriers also presents difficulty in accessing health care and other services, Nassery said.  

“We’ve put a lot of energy into trying to find English as a second language resources for them, but a lot of what exists in our area is already full,” Nassery said. “There’s limited capacity now because they’ve got so many people enrolled because, you know his was a huge influx of people coming in all at once. It wasn’t a trickle.”

For more information on how to assist Afghan families in Georgia via Afghan American Alliance of Georgia, visit the website at www.afghanamericanallianceofga.org.

For now, many of the Afghans who were allowed into the U.S. were granted permission to live temporarily under humanitarian parole. Now comes the journey of seeking permanent residency, typically through applying for asylum, which is a lengthy and costly process,  sometimes taking up to four years.

 “It is a very complicated process that takes time and resources, money to go through the process and it’s really, really slow,” Zangandou said. 

Inspiritus and other resettlement groups have been advocating for Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would provide a pathway to permanent residency without going through the asylum process for those who evacuated Afghanistan due its fall to the Taliban.