Australia rejects over 50,000 humanitarian visa applicants from a single community

Since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, approximately 208,000 Afghans have sought humanitarian and refugee visas for Australia to escape the Taliban regime.

However, more than 50,000 of these have had their applications for humanitarian visas refused by Australia while 144,000 other applications are pending.

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s political landscape, between 15 August 2021 and 31 August this year, 13,612 humanitarian visas have been granted to Afghan citizens under the offshore Humanitarian Program.

Afghan community members and former Afghan Locally Engaged Employees (LEEs) say they are “disheartened” with the high rate of rejection of humanitarian visas and are demanding the government reverse its decisions and grant the visas.
‘The Taliban killed my brother’
Ahmad* says he worked alongside Australian forces as an interpreter and cultural adviser in Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces between 2012 and 2013.

He arrived in Australia in 2014 and currently resides in Melbourne with his wife and children.

Ahmad* claims he submitted visa applications for his siblings and their family members about two years ago, but recently, two of his siblings received refusal letters from the Department of Home Affairs.
“After the fall of the republic [in Afghanistan], I submitted the applications on 30 August [2021] and received file numbers approximately three or three-and-a-half months later,” he said.

“In May [2023], when my family moved to Pakistan, I submitted an online update [to the Department of Home Affairs] stating that my family was now in a third country. Despite providing this update, the applications were still rejected.”

He says that eight months after his own arrival in Australia, his brother, who was a police officer in Afghanistan, was killed by the Taliban.

He says he believes that his “work with the government” and with Australian forces “could be the reasons” behind his brother’s killing.
Ahmad* says he is “disheartened” by the refusal of his siblings’ applications and is demanding that Australia grant visas to his family members “instead of rejecting” them.

“This [decision] has left me disappointed. My entire family is concerned because when they left the country, people became aware that they had assistance (from) foreigners,” he said.

For this reason, it would be virtually impossible for them to return and to live safely, he said.

“I have been sending emails to the Department but not receiving any positive responses and don’t know why,” he said.

“Those who worked with them [the Australian government], their family members should be placed on the priority list and receive attention.”
‘Five applications refused in 24 hours’
Uzair Safi is the president of the Pastune Association of South Australia.

When the Australian government announced humanitarian visas for Afghanistan, he says he submitted dozens of applications for his family members and relatives.

However, he said he received “refusals for five applications” in a single day.
Mr Safi said he was dissatisfied with the decision and that the current situation in Afghanistan was a “disaster” with people living under “extremism and oppression”.

“Those who rule there [in Afghanistan] are those who have guns. (It’s all about) the power of the gun, the gun is the law and you cannot ask for your rights,” he said.

“A certain group dominates. There is no government or system, which is why (our loved ones) are eligible for visas.

“This is our demand: that those people who have submitted the applications and are from Afghanistan, in considering the situation in Afghanistan, deserve to be accepted as refugees. Their cases should not be rejected.”
Mr Safi currently resides in Adelaide with his immediate family members, parents and siblings. His sister is the last member of their family remaining overseas. She’s currently in Pakistan awaiting an Australian humanitarian visa.

“One day after the collapse, they [my sister’s family] moved to Pakistan and are still waiting,” he said.

“Twelve of her siblings are Australian citizens, and her parents are Australian citizens.

“About seven months ago, I took my parents with me [to a meeting with the immigration minister] and (they) told the minister in a roundtable that their daughter and her husband had been waiting for the last two years.”