I was the first American reporter to reveal that thousands of Afghans evacuated by the U.S. in the chaotic Kabul exit were still waiting in limbo in a camp in the United Arab Emirates, with no path to leave or get to the U.S. Many described their lodging as a “prison,” with almost no time outdoors. As of September 2022, thousands of Afghans remain there.

One year since Kabul fell to the Taliban, thousands of Afghans who served alongside the U.S. military are stuck, as evacuations have slowed to a trickle under Taliban rule, less U.S. attention and limited evacuation and visa processing options. I spoke with one interpreter who worked with the U.S. for a decade, who is now hiding inside a safehouse with his family and little food or hope of getting to safety.

Immigration advocates and veterans are ramping up calls for Congress to pass an Afghan adjustment act — legislation that would secure permanent status for the thousands of evacuees living in the United States — illustrating what they say is an urgent need to save Afghans from legal limbo as they resettle.

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers is preparing legislation that would allocate more visas for Afghan allies who worked with the U.S. military in the country, setting up for a push to protect interpreters and others who aided the United States in Afghanistan as American soldiers prepare to leave.

Citing a security breach, the Biden administration has suspended the visa program meant to provide Iraqi allies with a path to safety in the US, a pathway that already languished under former president Donald Trump.

Just days before, he said Taliban members knocked on his door, searching for Afghans like him who had worked for the U.S. or for the national army. They didn’t find anything, he said, because his documents mostly exist on his phone, along with pictures of himself smiling beside American soldiers. He’s one of more than 20,000 who have applied for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), part of a program specifically designed to bring those U.S. allies to safety.

While her neighbors slept Tuesday night, Kristen Rouse was awake for nine hours inside her Brooklyn apartment, texting fellow veterans and messaging with Afghans, working to get people through the crowded streets outside the Kabul airport and onto evacuation flights.

“We have command centers set up in our living rooms,” the former U.S. Army Major said.

With just three days until the U.S. military was scheduled to fly out of Afghanistan for good, thousands of its Afghan allies were still outside Kabul’s airport gates, some hours away from the city, all unable to reach the life-saving flights leaving the country each hour.

U.S. military veterans who served in Afghanistan and trained local partners on the ground are calling on President Joe Biden in a new letter to speedily evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters and other allies from the region as they continue to face the threat of revenge attacks from the Taliban.