SLO County man works to help friend, family flee Afghanistan: ‘Entire family will be killed’
A Cambria man is reaching out to the community and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein for help to get a former colleague and his family safely out of war-torn Afghanistan.
Mike Reeves, a former U.S. Marine, spent much of the past two decades working as a government contractor in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Reeves wrote to Feinstein on Aug. 19, begging her to expedite special immigration documents (SID) — humanitarian parole visas — for his former colleague, his wife and their two young children. The family’s applications for the SID visas have been in process for three years.
As of Friday morning, that registered letter had not yet arrived, according to Feinstein’s staff in Washington.
But by midday Friday, the case managers for Feinstein and U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, a Democrat who represents California’s 24th District, were working with the U.S. State Department on the case.
Time is running out, Reeves said, and there’s an urgent need for help. U.S. efforts to withdraw troops, allies who worked with the military and civilians from Afghanistan were to end Tuesday.
U.S. troops began evacuations in Kabul earlier this month.
The threat level ramped up Aug. 26 after an explosion at the Kabul airport killed at least 13 U.S. service members and as many as 170 Afghan citizens as they gathered at the gates. Islamic State claimed credit for the suicide bombings, which was followed by an attack by gunmen who opened fire on troops and civilians.
With the Taliban now once again in control of Afghanistan, Reeves said, Taliban fighters are ramping up attacks against and assassinations of any Afghans who assisted American forces during the past 20 years.
Reeves added that pressure puts a big target on the back of his friend and former colleague, who he referred to only as Habibi to protect his identity and his safety.
“If the family’s real names or other information wind up on the internet, such as on Facebook or Twitter,” Reeves said, “the Taliban will find them and kill them.”
Reeves worked for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations division for 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq, collaborating frequently with Habibi.
Habibi and his father owned and operated an engineering company that worked under contract to TFBSO.
Then Habibi’s father was “brutally murdered by the Taliban,” along with Reeves’ American co-worker, the ex-Marine said in a steely voice muted by anger and pain.
“They dismembered them by shotgun in 2012,” Reeves recalled.
If the Taliban capture Habibi and his family, “Habibi will be killed. His wife will be sold into prostitution,” Reeves said. “Their son will be brainwashed into the terrorist way of life, and when their young daughter is 13, she will be married off to a freedom fighter.
“Or the entire family will be killed. It just depends on how the Taliban are feeling that day.”
Afghan man who worked with U.S.: ‘I am afraid for my family’
Habibi told The Tribune via email on Thursday that he, his wife and their young children fled their home and are in temporary rental accommodations.
Habibi wrote that they are in a “bad situation right now. I am afraid for my family. The situation of Afghanistan is not good. … There is no hope for anyone.”
His young son has diabetes, Habibi wrote. “He is always worried about me. Every day, he is telling me to ‘Take us out,’ but I can’t.”
Habibi added that he hopes the U.S. government will “help Mike Reeves to bring me in the safe place, getting me out of Afghanistan.”
“Taliban killed my father,” Habibi wrote. “Now, I am in danger.”
How to help
Reeves said other former military personnel and civilians also are trying to help Habibi and his family evacuate.
“We have everyone pulling every string we’ve got,” the ex-Marine said.
“Our mission as Marines is to leave no person behind, and I feel personally responsible to help this family get out of Afghanistan ASAP,” Reeves wrote in his letter to Feinstein. “I am willing to pay for their safe passage, to sponsor them here in the U.S., and do anything that can be done to get them to safety.”
“I know that the window for assistance to those that have helped Americans is quickly closing,” he added.
Toward that desperate aim, Reeves and his wife, Linda Giordano Reeves, are asking others to urge Feinstein to work quickly to help get Habibi, his wife and their children to safety before they’re murdered.
The Cambria couple is convinced that once the California senator and others learn the individual stories of the Afghans who helped the United States, they can work to save their lives.
In 2010, the Reeveses were granted official sponsorship of a five-member Iraqi family that emigrated to the United States. That family is now living independently, having successfully integrated into the Cambria community, Mike Reeves said.
Sponsorship, Reeves said, “means you promise to keep them taken care of, housed and out of the welfare system as much as possible.”
Once Habibi and his family are out of danger, Reeves and his wife will once again turn to the community for help and donations to get the family on its feet and flourishing.
First, however, the family has to survive and leave the country they love.
Reeves hopes that his friends and caring strangers will flood Feinstein and others with immediate calls, emails and other contacts.
“We can do this. We just have to do it now,” Reeves said.
To help, contact Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office at feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me and fill out the form to email her.
Reeves said it’s important to include the number for his friend’s pending visa application, which is NVCSIV201829005.
This story was originally published August 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
