In May, Afghan Special Mission Wing pilot and U.S. asylee Wahidullah Wahdat learned that his wife was killed in a gunfight outside a money exchange in Kabul. The tragedy has now left Wahdat’s children, all under the age of 13, without parents inside Afghanistan. News of his wife’s death and Wahdat’s ties to the former Afghan military have run rampant on social media. American benefactors from the Afghan American Development Group are attempting to keep Wahdat’s children safe. Without action from the State Department, however, the children have no chance of being reunited with their father.
Wahdat’s voice breaking with sadness, he told me that his children are “not in a good situation, especially emotionally.”
Two years after Wahdat graduated from Afghanistan’s National Military Academy, he began his aviation career as a copilot in the Cessna 208, used to transport Afghan National Army personnel around the country. One year later, he leaped at the chance to join the Special Mission Wing, an elite group of pilots trained to support Afghan and American special operations forces units operating throughout Afghanistan. Wahdat racked up 2,000 combat hours as a pilot. “We loved our job, we tried to keep our people safe and serve our country, and that was our big goal, to bring stability and peace.”
In Aug. 2021, however, the Taliban took control of Kabul amid the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Wahdat then spent three months in Tajikistan before American authorities arrived to do an initial screening of him and other pilots. They were then moved to a camp in Abu Dhabi for seven months for further screenings, interviews, and background checks, before being brought to Leesburg, Virginia, to await resettlement. At no point in those movements did authorities make an effort to help reunify Wahdat with his wife and children.
Like many U.S. allies left behind, Wahdat’s family changed houses for safety to avoid coming onto the Taliban’s radar. Wahdat said it was “really hard for the woman to take care of everything” under Taliban rule. His only way to assist his family was to support them financially while hoping for reunification. To make money to send to his wife and children, Wahdat has held full-time positions in quality control while simultaneously pursuing coursework to become a fiber-optic and telecommunications technician and driving for Lyft.
Although he arrived on humanitarian parole in June 2022, it took nearly two years for Wahdat to receive asylum. Only after Wahdat received asylum could his lawyer petition for his family members’ asylum cases, which were approved about nine months later in mid-2025. When President Donald Trump issued Presidential Proclamation 10998 on Dec. 23, 2025, it halted most travel for Afghan nationals, effectively stranding Wahdat’s family inside the country.
TRUMP EXPECTED TO NOMINATE TODD BLANCHE AS ATTORNEY GENERAL
Today, the only method to reunite Wahdat with his children is through a National Interest Exemption, which #AfghanEvac president Shawn VanDiver says must be issued by an approving or consular authority. There are no consular services inside Afghanistan. VanDiver says he knows of only two NIEs that have been granted, both to infants.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment about whether it would issue National Interest Exemptions to U.S. allies and their families who remain stranded overseas.