Long and trying road out of Afghanistan

By Dale Woodard - for the Lethbridge Herald on May 28, 2022.

It’s been a long and trying road to reach Canadian soil for Mahdi Taheri.
Speaking at the weekly Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs Thursday afternoon, in the first part of a two-part presentation, Taheri shared his difficult journey out of Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover last summer.
Joining Taheri in the SACPA session was his wife Jennel, who shared her own journey of desperation in finding ways to get Mahdi out of the country via Canadian Politicians, as well as her involvement with the evacuation of other Afghans and their procurement of special immigrant visas.
Taheri still has a brother in Abu Dhabi who has been left behind from the NGO
(non-government organization) that brought him out.
Taheri and Jennel met six years ago through a high school friend who deployed four times to Afghanistan for the United States Military. 
It was through a friend of a friend on social media that brought them together. 
Mahdi spent many years serving as a combat Interpreter and Cultural Linguist for the US Special Forces after serving 11 years in an Afghan Special Forces Unit referred to as Commandos for the Afghan National Army. 
After narrowly escaping the Taliban’s initial attempt to take over his hometown of Herat, Taheri was able to secure a seat on the last flight out of his city for Kabul. 
Jennel worked in the oil and gas industry for many years and also owned a gym in a small town in B.C.
Taheri crossed the border March 24 and is settling into life in northern B.C. with a community that has pulled together to support him. 
Jennel is in the process of hiring on with B.C. ambulance as a paramedic and Mahdi will be opening a small engine repair shop once all his paperwork goes through.
Still, in Thursday’s online session, Taheri spoke of having his visa “cancelled without prejudice” at the last minute on July 11 when he went to the U.S Embassy in Kabul to pick it up as Afghanistan was “falling fast” with the embassy being evacuated, forcing him to return to Herat with the Taliban pushing closer and closer.
Taheri also shared his story of catching the last flight out of Herat and ultimately getting a flight out of Kabul Aug. 18, where he battled his way through a crowd and was punched in the face by a British soldier at the gate for pushing before getting through.
Now on Canadian soil for a little over two months, Taheri was asked if he still has family in Afghanistan, and if so, are there plans for them to leave.
“My big brother is in Abu Dhabi right now,” he said. “What happened is Jennel helped him. After he contacted me multiple times when I was in Doha. He (asked) ‘What am I going to do in this city? I have no money and no job.’ He had left the military the day Herat fell down and the Taliban was announcing anyone serving in the military and working for the government was supposed to surrender themselves to the Taliban government. At that time, he did it. They have his name and his contact number, his house address and everything.”
However, Jennel was working for one of the NGO, helping people who live in Afghanistan after Aug. 30, which was the operation of the evacuation, said Taheri.
“Jennel actually put my brother on the list and the NGO took my brother out of Afghanistan with his wife and two daughters. Now he’s in Abu Dhabi.
“My dad and my (other) big brother live with one of my sisters in Afghanistan. They’re OK, they are safe. But the only issue is the economy has collapsed. They have bad economic issues, but I’m supporting them.”
After leaving Afghanistan, Taheri was evacuated to Doha and then to the United States.
“I was working for the United States and had a case for the United States and was able to apply for a green card,” he said. “I have a green card interview on June 1, but I have abandoned that and given up my American green card for Canadian permanent residency.”
After his ordeal, Taheri is on Canadian soil and with his wife.
“There is lots of PTSD and our family and our community, all of his support is here in Canada,” said Jennel. “It’s been six years. So I went down and drove him across. As soon as we got to the border, I said ‘This is my husband’. We had all of our papers ready, all of our military papers and they were so accommodating and so gracious.”
The only real obstacle, said Jennel, is the couple lives in the central interior of B.C. 
“We’re not in the greater Vancouver area where all the services are. We have a couple of processes (which) are totally foreign to us. For instance, they wouldn’t give him his driver’s license because he had to prove his history and to get it from his government. It’s things like that we’ve had to navigate through.”
Government-wise, Jennel said the couple is still in the “raw stages.”
“He doesn’t have his work visa yet or his permanent residency, which we’re told takes about three months. So we’re still in the midst of that and if you ask us that question maybe three months from now and we’ve gone through the hoops and the hurdles we could probably answer that question with a little more clarity. There are definitely some issues, but we’re not ready to answer at the moment.”

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