CHICAGO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Barely half an hour had passed since the flight landed at O\u2019Hare International Airport, and the Army combat veteran\u2019s palms were already sweating.<\/p>\n
Spencer Sullivan, 38, situated himself at the front of a crowd of people waiting near the exit for international arrivals. He knew it could be hours before his friend got through customs.<\/p>\n
Still, he said, \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting so long for this moment. I don\u2019t want to miss it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It had been just over 13 years since Sullivan, who now works in corporate development, first began helping his former interpreter in Afghanistan petition for a visa to live in the U.S. <\/p>\n
The process had been full of big hopes and bigger letdowns. Then, after finally securing the visa in September, an Afghan immigrant was accused of shooting two National Guard members in Washington.<\/p>\n
In the politicized aftermath, Sullivan wondered, would his friend get in?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Abdulhaq Sodais, left, and Spencer Sullivan right have breakfast at a hotel in Skokie, Ill., a day after Sodais\u2019 arrival in the U.S. <\/p>\n
After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, a teenaged Abdulhaq Sodais enrolled in English classes with the goal of becoming an interpreter for coalition forces. Nearly a decade later in 2010, employment records show he was contracted by Mission Essential, one of the largest companies that supplied interpreters in Afghanistan to Western forces. <\/p>\n
Sodais, 33, and Sullivan, then a platoon leader, met two years later at a military base in the remote Zabul Province.<\/p>\n
Together they would go on intel-gathering missions, talking to village leaders, scouting unfamiliar terrain and observing the Taliban from hilltops, where Sodais interpreted their radio transmissions for Sullivan in real time.<\/p>\n
In December 2012, Sullivan returned to the U.S., though he and Sodais stayed in touch. The following year, the blast of an improvised explosive device left Sodais with a concussion and a bulging spinal disk. He returned to his parents\u2019 home in Herat to recover. <\/p>\n
After his convalescence, he said, his supervisor told him to take a dangerous road back to the Zabul base \u2014 a day\u2019s drive for a journey commonly traveled by air. Afraid it would be a suicide mission, he declined to take the land route and was fired for job abandonment. <\/p>\n
The denial of his first Special Immigrant Visa application soon followed. <\/p>\n
Those visas offer a pathway to citizenship for Afghans who were employed by the U.S. government or its private contractors. In establishing the program, federal officials acknowledged a moral obligation to protect allies who risked their lives to help the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n
More than 50,000 such visas have been approved since 2009, according to the State Department. <\/p>\n
One requirement is \u201cfaithful and valuable service<\/a> to the U.S. government.\u201d Applicants denied visas are often deemed to have failed that provision, though interpreters and advocates have said<\/a> the smallest inconsistency could trigger a denial. Over the next few years, Sodais said, three more visa applications would be denied.<\/p>\n In a Nov. 23, 2014, recommendation letter, Sullivan, by then an Army captain, wrote that granting Sodais a visa \u201cis the least that can be done in order to express America\u2019s gratitude for his services.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cOn multiple missions in enemy controlled villages, his life was threatened by local nationals in support of the Taliban for his assistance of [coalition] forces,\u201d Sullivan wrote. \u201cAbdulhaq did not cover his face while on mission, leaving him recognizable to Taliban informants, further endangering his life.\u201d<\/p>\n He was rehired by Mission Essential in 2014, but fired again in 2016, with a civilian contractor writing in his file that he had an \u201cincompatible skill set with [the] unit\u2019s mission.\u201d She accused him \u2014 falsely \u2014 Sodais says, of checking his personal Facebook at the office. <\/p>\n Mission Essential later told The Times that he was terminated by the military for poor performance but that it had no record of the incident he referred to.<\/p>\n Sodais said he was confronted by his local mullah, or Muslim clergy leader, in 2015 for working with Western armed forces. The mullah said he was labeled an infidel, and his death had been sanctioned by the Taliban. He went into hiding at his parents\u2019 home. <\/p>\n Then, in July 2017, the Taliban killed Sayed Sadat, another interpreter who had worked with the platoon Sullivan had led. Devastated by the news, Sullivan reached out to Sodais, asking if he was OK.<\/p>\n Sodais had gotten a new phone and didn\u2019t reply. Sullivan, who now wears a metal memorial band with Sadat\u2019s name and date of death, feared Sodais also was dead. <\/p>\n Abdulhaq Sodais, left, and Spencer Sullivan walk through a park in Bremen, Germany, in 2021. Sodais fled Afghanistan for Germany, and Sullivan worked for years to get him a visa to travel to the U.S.<\/p>\n (Peter Dejong \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n What Sullivan didn\u2019t know was that Sodais had fled Afghanistan and arrived in Germany in 2018 after seven months of travel with smugglers by land. <\/p>\n After his first German asylum claim was rejected, a lawyer told Sodais he needed more evidence to back up his claims of working for the U.S. So, that Christmas Eve, he messaged Sullivan asking for photos from their missions together. He told Sullivan that if he couldn\u2019t find safety and stability, he would take his own life before the Taliban could.<\/p>\n Sullivan had been wracked with guilt since Sadat\u2019s death and vowed to help. He sent the photos Sodais requested, wrote a letter of support and helped him navigate German bureaucracy. He even flew to Germany from his home in Virginia in 2019 to offer encouragement. <\/p>\n But the asylum process moved slowly. By March 2021, Sodais, overwhelmed by fear of deportation, became deeply depressed and attempted suicide. At a psychiatric hospital, medical records show, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n That August, as the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, Sullivan returned to Germany to help Sodais prepare for his final asylum appeal hearing.<\/p>\n The verdict arrived a month later. He\u2019d won.<\/p>\n Sodais found succeeding in German society difficult. He felt a palpable sense of discrimination and was laid off from various contract jobs, including as a forklift operator and an aid helping special needs children on and off school buses.<\/p>\n While Sullivan was happy his friend had found safety, he was disappointed that the country he had served continued to reject his requests for a visa. <\/p>\n \u201cHe should be in America,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cWe failed him<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In the meantime, life continued. Sodais married another Afghan refugee, Weeda Faqiri, in 2022. Sodais\u2019 and Sullivan\u2019s families met for the first time in 2022 when Sullivan, his wife and son visited Germany. <\/p>\n Also that year, Sodais said, he won a $15,000 legal judgment against Mission Essential over lack of medical care after the explosive device blast more than a decade earlier.<\/p>\n He and Sullivan decided to write a book about Sodais\u2019 life and their friendship. \u201cNot Our Problem: The True Story of an Afghan Refugee, an American Promise, and the World Between Them\u201d is scheduled to publish in April. <\/p>\n Last year, Sodais decided to make a final pitch to the U.S. government. On Feb. 4 came a reply unlike the others: \u201cApproval of Appeal for the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program.\u201d <\/p>\n Abdulhaq Sodais and his wife, Weeda Faqiri, share their first meal in the United States at a restaurant Chicago on Dec. 17. <\/p>\n On Sept. 25, Sodais was issued a visa valid for just over five months, until March 3. Overjoyed, he and Faqiri, 26, began planning their move. <\/p>\n Two months later, Rahmanullah Lakanwal<\/a>, 29, was charged in the shooting that killed Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom<\/a>, 20, and critically wounded Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. <\/p>\n Lakanwal, who pleaded not guilty, entered the U.S. in 2021 through a Biden administration program for Afghans in the wake of the military withdrawal, and his asylum application was approved in April. In Afghanistan, he served in a counterterrorism unit operated by the CIA.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n