Back in 2009, the U.S. military forces encouraged me to take my family to live in a peaceful country, to live in the United States. The soldiers who were already home wrote to me on Facebook: “By 2014, the President of the United States is going to move all the soldiers in Afghanistan back to United States. It’s going to get worse for you. Apply today.”

I applied to relocate to the U.S. My reason for leaving Afghanistan was security for my family and me. Because of my work for the U.S. military, the Taliban were trying to kill or capture me.

At that time, the policy was to get a background check from the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, send the results to the U.S. Embassy, and wait for the call to come for an interview. I did this. There was no call for an interview. For some reason, the envelope was lost in the middle of somewhere.

The next year, I applied for an SIV, Special Immigrant Visa. For some reason, I was denied. I didn’t know why.

In April 2014, our daughter, Leema, was born. I was home on vacation, so I was able to take Homa to the hospital. My mom and my older sister came with us. Homa had the baby, and the next morning, we were home. I can’t explain the feeling of having a daughter. I love her more than myself.

Homa asked Fraidoon to translate her feelings at this time. “When the first time I had a son, I was so happy because I was a complete mom, not only a wife, not only a bride, but I was a mom too. I was so excited. When I had Leema, I was even more happy, because I was a mom to two kids — a boy and a girl. My happiness becoming a mom never changed.”

By this time, Dave had finished his tour and was back home in Nebraska. He looked for organizations that would help me. After a while, he found the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP).

Dave says that the IRAP was a very small organization, only six full-time paid employees, but they had about four hundred lawyers in their network doing pro bono legal work.

IRAP vetted me, took my case, and provided me with a lawyer, Sari Long. Sari is the best lawyer. She put in a new SIV application for me.

Sari says, “I’ve cried only once in my professional life, and it was about this case.”

On June 9, 2014, Fraidoon and Sari had their first Skype conference call. Sari says, “I was nervous about talking to him because some of these folks have been terribly traumatized. They’ve seen things that we can’t imagine.

“Fred didn’t open with the fact that he had been blown up by IEDs. He didn’t say that he had a letter from the Taliban saying he was going to be killed. He just said how he loved working with the U.S. military. He answered every question I had. He said, ‘Whatever you do, I’m so grateful. I’ve tried doing this on my own and haven’t gotten very far. I don’t know what the problem is. How can I help?’”

Two paralegals were also working with Sari and Fraidoon during the first Skype call. They started with the basics: “What are you doing now? What have you done?”

Sari says, “Fred smiled a lot on Skype, which was disarming because the previous clients I had worked with were too traumatized to smile. He was so American. He punctuated every other word with fuck because that’s how he had learned to talk from enlisted guys. He was, like, ‘I fucking did this, and I fucking did that.’ I tried hard not to laugh. I tried to be a professional attorney, but he was such a disarmingly charming person. We talked about his family. He talked a lot about Dave because Dave was his champion, his advocate. During our initial call, we tried to nail down the details about moving forward on the SIV process. First we gathered all of Fred’s documentation. Then we needed letters of recommendation from former supervisors to prove that Fred had served faithfully and loyally to the U.S. military and affiliates.

“Dave put out a call on Facebook. In one day, he got sixty-five responses, which was unbelievable. Usually the hardest part of the application for interpreters is to get letters of support. If I wasn’t already convinced that Fred was unique, that confirmed it.

“I touched base with the National Visa Center (NVC) here in the U.S. to determine the status of Fred’s case and to inform them that I was his legal representative.”

The National Visa Center did not reply. Sari contacted Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin. In seeking a congressional contact, she chose Pocan because Fraidoon served with members of the Wisconsin National Guard, who could say to their representative, “We really, really care about this man. Do what you can.” The congressman came on board. So many people were involved in bringing Fred to the States. Sari says, “I wondered about all those poor people who need this program but don’t have the support that Fred had earned.

“The National Visa Center’s response to me was to ask for more information. Fred immediately submitted additional information. In July, the NVC said that they had everything they needed. We were feeling good at this point.” Two weeks later, Fred’s application was denied.

Here is the reason provided for the denial: “Given that your employment was terminated for cause, you do not meet the requirement of faithful and valuable service to the U.S. Government.”

Sari explains: “One of the requirements for an SIV is proof that you have had twelve months of ‘faithful and valuable service.’ If any negative comments are on record, such as you were fired or you had a disciplinary action against you, you will be denied at the very first step of your SIV process. Fred’s former employer, Mission Essential Personnel (MEP), did not keep good records. Their records stated that Fred refused to go on a mission.

“‘Hey, it says right here that you refused a mission,’ I said to Fred. ‘Did you refuse a mission? Is there something you’re not telling me?’

“Fred got so fired up. I’d never seen him so worked up. ‘I HAVE NEVER REFUSED A MISSION,’ he shouted. ‘I took on more missions than anyone else. I can’t believe that’s on file. I didn’t even notice this.’

“Ultimately, we found out that when Fred requested the transfer because of the threats against his life, they replied, ‘We’re going to transfer you to Kabul. Wait for our call. We’ll find work for you at the airport. Just hang out for a while.’

“Fred waited a long time, but they never called. It turned out that the records were not up-to-date, and they were calling the wrong telephone number. When Fred didn’t answer, they just wrote it up as a refused mission.

“I was on the phone with the lead officer manager in Kabul, who acknowledged that their records were bad. Nevertheless, he refused to do anything about it. He said, ‘You’re never going to get a new letter.’ That’s what he told me.”

When the office manager told Sari that they didn’t have time to deal with Fred, Sari was furious. ‘Well,” she said, “I have all the time in the world, and I will call you every day until you fix this record.” And she did.

“I went to my office at seven in the morning so that I could call MEP in Kabul in the middle of their day. ‘Hey, guys, where are you at with this?’

“Dave called too. I think Dave’s calls are what ultimately changed their minds. He had been there. He had seen Fred at work.”

I didn’t tell Homa about this. She was always asking me, “Where’s your application?” I’d tell her, “It’s under process — just wait.” But I was reading e-mails that said, denied, re-appeal, denied.

Dave wrote letters for me. He said, “If Fred doesn’t have space to live in the U.S., my house is his house. He can live with me.” Everybody who tried to help me was pissed.

Sari continues: “Finally, one person at MEP had the wherewithal to look at the pay records and the transfer records for the contracting company. They saw the error and agreed to change their letter.”

In August 2014, Sari submitted an appeal for Fred’s case, along with a new MEP letter with the corrected reason for termination: no position available.

Command Sergeant Major Paul Metz got Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin involved. She provided a letter of support for Fred’s appeal. At this point, they were appealing the denial based on the fact that the Mission Essential Personnel had screwed up.

Sari wasn’t convinced that an appeal would work. “I submitted a second, entirely new application, with all the correct answers. My thinking was, they could deny the appeal, but they could not deny a fresh, totally correct application.

“We waited and waited and still got nothing. We had submitted this stuff in August and September. No response.”

During the years of waiting, Fraidoon continued his dangerous work with the security company. The fatwa was still in place.

Sari says, “The National Visa Center and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were completely nonresponsive in any of the follow-ups that we were trying to get. Senator Baldwin’s office stayed involved. Finally, in April, the National Visa Center said, ‘We have everything we need.’ At last we were on the way.

“Two weeks later, the National Visa Center denied both the appeal and the second application. They said — and this is the worst part about the whole process — they said, ‘Derogatory information has been associated with Fraidoon Akhtari that is incompatible with the regulations of the SIV program.’ That’s when I cried at work.”