Eyed with suspicion, WA Afghans find pain and promise in American life

He was a professor. She was a teacher.

One day, they were helping to build a new country in tandem with the U.S. government. The next, as the Taliban brought the past rushing back, they were hopping on a bus with their two young daughters for a nearly 24-hour journey to Kabul, where in late 2021 they would fly out for an unknown future in the U.S.

Sayed brought one book: “Good Economics for Hard Times,” written by Nobel Prize winners. His wife, Pari, brought dreams of a different life.

They were part of a historic influx of Afghans to the U.S. after the Taliban takeover – roughly 200,000 nationally and an estimated 15,000-plus in Washington state – plunged into a vastly different society, with cultural, educational and technological norms far removed from what they were used to. Whiplash followed whiplash. Fast-changing internal politics have brought consequences still playing out.

The Biden administration offered safety to many Afghans fleeing the Taliban takeover of their country, and they were greeted by an outpouring of public support. Then came the Trump administration, eyeing them with suspicion.

That shift accelerated in November, when an Afghan immigrant living in Bellingham allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., one of them fatally. President Donald Trump, who had already limited Afghan immigration with a travel ban, declared his administration would reexamine cases of those already here.

They were not properly vetted, Trump said, adding: “If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them.”

Long before he allegedly shot National Guard members, Rahmanullah Lakanwal holed up for weeks at a time in a darkened room and appeared to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a community volunteer’s email sent to an organization helping immigrants. Lakanwal had worked in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit.

Judging by the volunteer’s email, first reported by the Associated Press and also obtained by the Seattle Times, Lakanwal did not appear to be seeking help. While his is an extreme and singular case, his apparently unfulfilled need for mental health services is not unusual. More than half of recently resettled Afghans in the U.S. surveyed in 2023 said they experienced mental health challenges, three-quarters of whom had not received professional help.

The stresses on Afghan immigrants are many – not least their attempt to build a new life while processing violence they experienced, the chaos of their departure and separation from loved ones left in danger.

The past year has brought more pressure and less help. Soon after taking office, Trump slashed funding to resettlement agencies that serve immigrants and refugees. Federal support will diminish further in October, when aspects of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” take effect.

“It was a challenging journey for me during the past few years,” said Sayed, who, like Pari and several people interviewed for this story, declined to be identified by his full name. He said he feared consequences for family members in Afghanistan, while others, including American citizens helping Afghans resettle, said they were afraid of being harassed amid the anti-Afghan backlash.

Yet, Sayed appears to have largely adapted well, Pari too.

“For me as a woman, it was totally life-changing,” she said of immigration to the U.S.

She felt like she was living in a cage in Afghanistan, she said, and now she feels free – free even from her marriage.

A sudden change

Shellshock.

Cordelia Revells, director of immigrant and refugee services for Jewish Family Service in Seattle, picked up on it as Afghans started to arrive in Washington, some drawn by the presence of current or former U.S. soldiers they served with in Afghanistan.

Revells had seen immigrants from all over the world scarred by prolonged violence. But often, they had spent years in refugee camps before coming to the U.S., putting the horrors they experienced in the past and giving them time to adjust to the idea of leaving their country.

With Afghans, she said, “it was such a sudden change of circumstances.”

Often left behind: spouses, children, siblings, parents. Some families planned to reunite in the U.S., unaware it could take years, if they were lucky, to get the visas they needed for that to happen. Other separations occurred during the mayhem of U.S. evacuation flights.

Jewish Family Service saw children as young as 8 arrive without their parents.

A tense journey

Pari got a call from her husband around 11 a.m. one day in August 2021. She was at a school where she taught English. “We have to leave at 2 o’clock today,” Sayed said.

A D.C. nonprofit Sayed had done democracy research for said it could get his family on a flight if they could make it to Kabul, more than 600 miles away.

After a grueling bus trip to Kabul, they joined others at a meeting point and drove to the airport. The Taliban turned them back.

Sayed, Pari and their children laid low in Kabul for 70 days before they could get on another flight. Sayed nervously followed the progress of the plane, unable to feel safe until they landed in Qatar, a way station en route to the U.S. Eventually, they made it to a New Jersey military base, where they joined thousands of other Afghans awaiting resettlement across the U.S., and then on to Seattle.

Members of a “sponsor circle,” part of a now-canceled U.S. government program to bolster Afghan resettlement with community volunteers, met the family with flowers and a welcome sign in Dari.

“I couldn’t believe when I arrive I will face this much love,” Pari said.

‘Things are getting worse’

Sayed, Pari and their daughters were luckier than many. They were together. Sayed and Pari were well-educated and had a working, if imperfect, knowledge of English. Their sponsor circle was committed and energetic.

Other Afghan immigrants have faced bigger obstacles. Some had little formal schooling due to an education system weakened by decades of war and poverty.

Just 52% of Afghan men were literate in 2021, according to UNICEF. Among women, who often had even less access to education, the literacy rate was 27%.

Lack of familiarity with technology has created additional problems. One Afghan newcomer to Washington, unaware of how to set up automatic payments online, had a car repossessed, said a community volunteer helping his family. Others fell off Seattle Housing Authority’s subsidized housing waiting list because they didn’t check in online every month.

Some were surprised by American rules, like not being able to keep daughters home from school to help with housework. Even eye contact between unrelated men and women was an adjustment.

Many literally couldn’t understand their new surroundings. Washington has relatively few interpreters speaking Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan’s primary languages. There simply hadn’t been many Afghans here until recently. Census data collected between 2018 and 2022 showed just 5,000 lived in the Seattle area. Now there are at least three times as many.

In early 2024, several community volunteers met in a Sodo Starbucks to discuss worries about Afghan families they were helping. Typically, they were large families, hard to support on the salaries of the janitorial, warehouse and other such jobs many of the newcomers could find, even when supplemented by food stamps and cash assistance. Often, in keeping with tradition, only the men worked. Eviction loomed for one family.

“Instead of things getting better, things are getting worse,” one volunteer said. These volunteers were staying involved; others burned out.

Yet, some Afghan immigrants have kept moving ahead. When Zainab Aziz, 21, first arrived in Washington three years ago, she commuted from Auburn to Seattle late at night for 12-hour shifts as a hotel receptionist.

One job led to another and she now runs employment workshops for Afghan Health Initiative, a South King County nonprofit. Both men and women attend her classes, a sign of changing attitudes, though lingering traditional ones lead to isolation among some Afghan women stuck at home in a new country.

In the U.S., there’s opportunity, said Aziz, who is studying to become a nurse. “I better take it.”

Breaking taboos

Pari stopped wearing a hijab almost as soon as she landed in the U.S. She is Muslim, and while some consider the headscarf mandatory, she believes whether to wear one is her decision to make.

She started making other decisions for herself.

She never wanted to be a teacher. “It is so boring,” she said.

But teaching was one of the few jobs open to women in Afghanistan. Here, she enrolled at a community college to study business and got a part-time job as a receptionist.

Pari considered her marriage.

She was 18, just out of high school, when she and Sayed wed. “I wasn’t the age to say that I wanted or I didn’t want it. I just told my dad, whatever you decide,” she said.

As she recounted it, problems in the marriage surfaced early. She didn’t consider divorce. In Afghanistan, it was taboo. Not so here. The couple separated early last year.

She and Sayed each live in small, tidy Seattle apartments their daughters go between. In recent interviews, both served green tea, Pari’s spiced with cardamom and saffron. Sayed keeps canaries, popular pets in Afghanistan that remind him of his childhood.

The former professor declined to discuss details of his marriage, noting the couple’s divorce case is in court. It has turned rancorous.

“Unfortunately, I faced some family issues,” is about all he will say.

He acknowledged those issues didn’t help his mental state.

Soon after arriving in Seattle, Sayed sent out more than 100 résumés for teaching, security and office jobs. He got no response. He realized two handicaps: He had no job history in the U.S., and, with a Ph.D., he was overqualified. So he drew up a new résumé listing a fake security job in Afghanistan and only a high school education.

With that, he landed a security job in downtown Seattle. Priding himself on turning every challenge into an opportunity, in his downtime, he read newspapers and listened to former President Barack Obama’s speeches to refine his English.

Still, his minimum wage salary didn’t go far. As financial realities set in, he was learning to navigate American ways. In his old life, deep-seated etiquette demanded elaborate politeness and humility, not the direct communication and self-promotion expected here.

Emails needing a response came at him from all directions: the kids’ school, state offices in charge of benefits, his car insurance company.

“After the first year, I realized that something is not going well with my well-being,” he said. He went to his family doctor and received medication for depression and anxiety. It’s been a big help.

Sayed now works at a nonprofit helping Middle Eastern and Somali immigrants, where he’s working on plans to offer counseling in Afghan languages.

Pressures mount

There’s a stigma around mental health treatment in Afghan culture, said Mohammad Haroon Walizadeh, a onetime counselor for Lutheran Community Services Northwest and a recent Afghan immigrant.

Myths run rampant, Walizadeh said. Seeking counseling, it is incorrectly said, can get you fired or have your kids taken away.

Walizadeh now coordinates a research project on Islamic-based healing circles, co-sponsored by the Lutheran services group, that is designed to overcome resistance to conventional therapy. He speaks Dari and Pashto, and so do counselors at a few local agencies, including his former employer. But such fluency, as elsewhere, is rare among mental health providers.

Mental health help, and other medical care, is about to become even harder to access for many Afghan immigrants. As of October, Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” limits who, among adults, qualifies for Medicaid mainly to U.S. citizens and people who have held green cards for at least five years. (Children and pregnant women remain eligible regardless of immigration status and some adult immigrants ineligible for Medicaid may qualify for a more limited state medical program.)

At the same time, Afghans who came here in the last year may be even more stressed than those who arrived before. Resettlement agencies hit by funding cuts can’t offer the same three months of support they used to, such as free housing, furniture and connection with social services.

Gulmaki Azizi, who works at Afghan Health Initiative, said one family recently sent her a picture of their home. It had virtually nothing in it. She found donations and took items from her own home.

An Edmonds group of volunteers that used to partner with Lutheran Community Services to supplement resettlement efforts decided last year to “go rogue,” as group member Lynn Heitritter put it, and support three struggling Afghan families without an agency’s backing. The group has bought furniture, taken the families to doctor appointments and more.

Heitritter has formed close bonds with these and two other Afghan families she has helped over the years, one bringing over a seven-course dinner after she had surgery.

But neighborly help doesn’t take all worries away – especially of the Trump administration’s plans to re-vet Afghan immigrants already granted legal status in the U.S.

Reason to fear?

Sayed, who, like Pari, now has a green card, said he has no reason to fear. He hid nothing when he came to the U.S. and passed three security checks, he said.

Pari also stressed her family came legally. And, mostly, she seems content. Over Christmas dinner with a member of her sponsor circle, she said: “I have everything I ever dreamed of.” Pari and Sayed’s kids are thriving, the older is president of her school’s student body.

But the administration’s moves have dashed her hopes of bringing her mom to the U.S. and weakened her sense of security. “If they send us back home,” she said, “what would happen?”