soon, then a muzzle mccoy allowing abortions until 24 weeks. columbia's court has raised the bar even compared to countries which have taken giant steps to defend women's reproductive rights on what they're most countries. the time limit for having an abortion is for shorter. in the meantime, women activists say it's not enough to have their rights on paper. they say they'll keep fighting to make sure the law is implemented. monica inactive, al jazeera. ah, i'm kimberly. with headlines on al jazeera, the u. s. is imposing new sanctions on russia, cutting off 2 major institutions from western financing. the move comes after president vladimir putin recognized the independence of 2 separatist held areas of east in ukraine. russian president vladimir putin says he's ready to look for a diplomatic solution to resolve the stand off of ukraine just

a day after he was given parliamentary approval to use troops outside of russia to support ukraine separatists who had asked for the measure to back fighters who have been at war with the ukrainian army since 2014 in the disputed regions measure from after the al country stays open for direct and honest dialogue for the search of diplomatic solutions, for the most complex issues. but i repeat russia's interests and our citizens safety are absolute limits. we will continue strengthening and developing our army and navy, increasing their efficiency, providing them with the most advanced equipment to do lots of the you. a secretary of state has cancelled a meeting this week with russia's foreign minister. so gay lever off. and the blinking says that makes no sense to whole talk. since russia had started an invasion of ukraine. president putin's deeply disturbing speech yesterday. and his statements today made clear the world how he views ukraine, not as a sovereign nation with the right to territorial integrity and independence,

but rather as a creation of russia and therefore subordinate to russia. it's a completely false assertion that ignores history international law and the 10s of millions of patriotic ukrainians who are proud citizens of a free and independent ukraine. in other news, the syrian military says, israel has launched a number of missiles on positions and it's board of province of crenisha attack was launched from the israeli occupied golden heights. there are been long queues for fuel and sri lanka. the government is running low and foreign currency, which is needed for imports. the state own oil company can't get loans to buy more fuel because it's already 3 and a half $1000000000.00 in debt. the fuel shortage is also crippling the power groups and this is leading to rolling blackouts. those are the headlines all have another wrapped world news here on al jazeera right after the stream. all

seed about 25 minutes, the life it else. ah, which is here. with you oh, i actually ok, it has been 6 months since the united states withdrew from afghanistan. and now tens of thousands of afghans are trying to do the same. let me give you an idea of how slow the application process is. so since last july, 170 people have been given permission to relocate to the united states. but 43000 have applied. so today on the street we ask, is the u. s. during the enough to help afghans seeking refuge?

ah, joining our discussion leading our discussion halima the d cut layla. thank you so much for being on the stream today, sharing your thoughts and your insights. halima, welcome, please introduce yourself to our global audience. thank you so much for having me. my name is halima wiley, i'm based out of new york city. i'm a community organizer and a co founder of against for a better tomorrow, which is the advocacy group based in the united states. good to have you. hello, city kept please introduce yourself to the stream audience. tell them who you are and what you do. hello, thank you for having me. i'm many mess it up a he, me, i am a over this scholar and i was a woman based in afghanistan and evacuated from afghanistan and dr. now i'm working with a non profit organization based in washington dc. thank you very much for being on

the stream storm. roll out. welcome, please introduce yourself. hi, thank you. my name is layla you. i am an immigration lawyer and an african american organizer with project a non, which is this to afghan seeking humanitarian pearl to come to the united states. right. so you've met our gas audience. if you're on youtube right now, what comments or questions do you have? i will do my very best to wrap them into the show, just put them right here in the comment section at the deacon. i'm just thinking about that bureaucratic process of applying to move to the united states. if you could describe bait or sum it up, what would you tell us? it is. it is a very difficult process, but the difficulty right now it is not only the process itself, the application, but the challenge is right now for those who are i stolen. if ganesh on is that

tears, the county that one does lay when you an application is eligible. so if i some are, it will be you apply. first of all, you have to find any sponsored in you up, learn a fill out those, all the active forms. layla might be a better person who tell the name of the forms and that you fill out all these forms. and you find the sponsor who will fill the forms and dried the letter for you that they will support to you. and the same time you apply, if you have the money, you have to apply if pay that $575.00. if not you applied would fee river, which is a very big reason that a lot of application are getting dejected. and at the same time you apply these, if you are ot desk is based in afghanistan the 1st time they will get dejected, they will not look at the application at all. they will just reject that because you are not in that pierce county, which is, which is itself is

a huge challenge. because if those people who go to that their county and the application is still get the jig, it, what will happen to them that time? and so that is the deb processed right now. okay, my head is spinning just listening to that very brief description. this hunk, whole process at layla is known as humanitarian pro roll. what does that mean? yeah, yeah. so payroll refers to a really wide discretion that the government has to admit people to come here. it doesn't lead to a permanent status. and it's really a way for someone who otherwise wouldn't have a pathway to enter the united states to be, to have permission to get here. and it is a huge discretion for the u. s. per roles. people when they arrive at an airport, for example. and they really don't have to complete these applications to get per rolled into the u. s. but they have done that they've completed these applications

. and the u. s. has the discretion to approve them so that if they are refugees, for example, um they don't really have a viable pathway because of how back logged and slow and eroded the refugee process is that they could ask for parole and get to the united states. and then ask for asylum once they're here. so it's like an emergency. it's like an emergency measures, like i my, i don't have a visa, i really need to get out of afghanistan or the 3rd country that i've gone to in order to get to the u. s, this is an emergency measure, that is incredibly slow right now. plus, you need money. i had city, can you mentioning the money when this is a family that money adds up? hello may help us understand how much money do you need to even just put in application? well, it's 500 $75.00 per person per application. and so let's say you have

a family of 10 that immediately adds up, you know, the $575.00 per person for those 10 people. and so i had actually sponsored my family and again it's, and it's actually my uncle and it's a family of 10. thankfully we were able to get financial assistance through the community. that's been fundraising money, actually lie, laws group, project nar, has been fundraising money in order to cover the cost of these. and the one thing to understand is that a lot of folks in the dentist and they survive on less than $575.00 for the entire month for a family of time. and so this is definitely an economic barrier for a lot of again to be able to apply and likes a vehicle to just mentioning oftentimes because of the economic situation of games and against them. and perhaps of their sponsor, the united states, not able to afford it, you know, going down the path of a waiver,

but that's just additional process time as well. and so what we're seeing is that these economic challenges really ends up hurting again to trying to apply for the humanitarian pearl. and i'll just add to that we, we don't want to ask our community to put all of their resources into this when we're trying to help afghans who are still in sun and need money to make me. we need to support arriving afghans who are in a vulnerable position here as we resettle. and you know, there's many folks. alexa, because speak to this herself, but there's many afghans who arrived in recent months and they have their families that they're trying to get here. and we, we cannot tell them it's a good idea to spend this much money on all of these applications to try to get their family here. when we don't know what the government is going to do with them

. and really we know that they're there. they're not using their discretion as generously as they could be. yeah. deca has seneca go ahead. johns, i'm it can add to layla's point. i mean, that's only that many, you know, if after august it 2021, it's the family's all. some families are over there around the world, and as i'm part of them are still in afghanistan. some part of them are in slomo, some part of them. some of them are an lawanda, some of them here in the united states. we need those found is need to your if you unite back and again the challenges, i hope that that is the only the challenge of $575.00 in no, you pay that. it's okay. i will pay that. but you will, you, of your family will, dedication will not accept it and you didn't, you need to spend more money to get them to the test county. for example,

i'm working on a case that they are still in pool, and i found the pro bono attorney who is helping with that. but she's not ex, i sat meeting the application because the government will not look to the application, even if i repay all this money, they will not look at it because as i just is cobbled, so you have to be in islam of the you have to be somewhere not to her on some weird that is like the that is an m b c u. s embassy. so what that means, a lot of money to you know, are getting outside the county applying for a visit to dec county getting a flight, you know, living in another county. you cannot work, does all need financial help. and you cannot, we cannot afford that as an act in family. you know what it's, you know, i'm thinking to take it. it means that only certain people are going to be out to afford to apply and maybe relocate. and if you don't have the means, you could end up like that to people in couple. recently speaking to news teens

about greg, dia, economic situation, just so that we're framing this and what is happening in afghanistan today. take a look. tavar will take a shot difference we see in these 6 months since the taliban ceased power is that there is no work at all. items are plentiful, but not jobs. before the past 6 months, people had jobs and the work situation was quite good. but now poverty and hunger having creature that he was yet wholesale associates and situation has affected us a lot. because previously people had income, they had jobs, people have lost their jobs and their incomes have been cut off. now about 95 percent of the people are in need of bread day and night. that is why previously if he's got 3 to 4 sucks of flower, now we don't even use of one and a half im only afternoon. he didn't want anything. so we already understand how tricky it is to just put in an application. you cannot even be inca bore. anyway, in afghanistan, you have to be in a separate country. it is going to cost you per family member,

$575.00. and then you make your application and then everything slows down. earlier we spoke to the u. s. citizenship and immigration services department, so we were communicating with them. they sent us a very, very long statement. this is a little bit that we picked out. they were explaining why this process is taking so long. in a typical year, the u. s. c. i s receives fewer than 10000 requests for humanitarian pro overrule from all nationalities of those requests, approximately 500 to 700 are approved in a typical year. all right, said that it's, it's not easy to apply in a normal year. and then that figure, remember i mentioned it right at the beginning. 43000 afghans applied between last july and now and a 170. i've been given approval to relocate halima. this is a bureaucratic nightmare. what would you say to the u. s. c. i

s. right now about how can they improve the situation because it's really not working. you know, and i think one thing to note, i think, and i think not worthy for the audience to recognize and thought back in august 1, this one, you know, again, this time was essentially falling to the taliban. one of the things that we were told by government officials was to actually apply for you mentoring, for all we knew and the administer the binders. ministration knew that the refugee program, the program, which in the special immigrant visa program had all been essentially deteriorated by the previous president, the president, trump. and so you, mentor and parole was seen as sort of this you know, outside of the box, almost solution to, you know, get the vulnerable, get the most vulnerable audience outside of the country. unfortunately, it hasn't necessarily played out like that. one of the things that a lot of organizers in the united states was pushing for was to drop the $575.00

application fee. and this is as early as you know, end of august september. unfortunately, us areas in the baton with ministration and budge online. and so we see that fee to this day. i think project lauren laila can probably chime in on this. it does come in and that us yes. is going to make $17000000.00 give or take of a profit off of these applications, you know, like a lot of money. and in the me, in the meantime, they're giving more so denials and there are pools. and so unfortunately, it's just a situation where we're trying to get more transparency around. why these denials are happening when i received the denial for my own family, it of time have been denied. and the information that you see i sent in terms of the reasoning for the denial was very vague and basically said, oh, there wasn't enough supporting evidence. i provided a lot of documentation with each application in terms of why my family was at risk

. why they need to leave the country, but it wasn't enough. and so for me, at least, it's very interesting because the reason for the united states to start a war in 2001 was for, you know, the talented being a violent group to tell that being an oppressive group. unfortunately, those same reasons that africans are saying is a real grave threat. their well being on the humanitarian per all applications is suddenly not good enough to grant them mentoring parole. so it's quite the, i guess, catch 22 that a lot of athens are. right. so the citizenship and immigration status told us in a statement that 1500 people have been denied. so far, i have so many questions for you guess from youtube. i'm going to ask you to respond very quickly that we can get through as many as possible that they're really interested in what you have to say. so i call says, and i'm going to get this one to use it eco. the u. s. has failed the people of afghanistan due to its rash decision to withdraw troops from that country,

leaving it under the rule of the taliban. let the u. s. a. accept refugees to enter the united states. you say want to that comment? the deca. i am sorry. i missed it, could you repeat? what was the exact and i'm going to say it was late alaina. did you hear that? i come back to speak of another thought because it was a very long question. layla. go ahead. let let you know. let refugees come to the us, just let them come. yeah. so, you know, even in that statement from usa, i guess we hear from the government how they couldn't they, they didn't expect this number of applications, right? all of these things are direct consequences of decades of u. s. foreign policy towards atkins. they knew that there were going to be african refugees. it's been years,

but immigration advocates have been putting out recommendations to the government on how to address the issues with the refugee process. and specifically, in the last year, directly related to afghanistan, foreign policy, when the withdrawal was announced under the previous administration, immigration advocate, afghans have been telling the government that people were going to have to resort to parole. so these are all like the current situation that africans are facing is known and expected. and the fact that the government can say, oh, you know, this is so many applications. this is so much more than what we've got a normal year. it's just reflective of how they treat afghans as you know, you, the lead disposable, honestly like they did in,

didn't invest enough resources upfront and now there are so many solutions laid out to them. we've all been recommending to them to use their discretion widely to grant these applications to waive the fees to create a special pearl program for afghans that can address the shortcomings of the refugee process. and address the limits of the existing humanitarian pro process. and it's really up to them now to respond to that and to create a better way to process atkins. and honestly they, like we mentioned, they have all this money now from all of the application fees. they have allocated triple or quadruple the number of staff to reviewing these applications. so we just need to make sure that they're not using all those resources to deny entry to oregon. okay. all right, seems to think i have one more question for you. this comes from our community

watching right now. do you feel let down by the us and the west at the women and minority group members? yes. i'm, you know, when, in 2001 know, 2002, when the u. s. came teen afghanistan, they say that the war a women's right war. and we are coming to do it later, right now. look at is schools are close for gods or no. and i over that are glass of 86 or women are a no do not have to denote rides, freedom of speech, women cannot work. women in a look at that janice and can see all the reports from afghanistan and what's happening to our, to the soldiers farmer for soldiers who fight and

a beside all american soldiers in nobody is seeing a than is that you went when i see all the news of what happening, how the tall ashburn are torturing, taking the women's being the performer, soldiers, it's it, my heart aches and i'd say it's do my yes. as out as f, as a women, as a minority to group. yes. burst in counties, you as late as down. i want to begin one more point here because you may be very care gas that smells having parole was the 1st step. it's not the end of being a secure afghan in the united states. wherever you relocate is just the 1st step. earlier we spoke to steve and he told us what the next step should be. how to listen to him, then lima. will you respond off the back of stephen's comment here? yes. even if half and get to the united states somehow they need to figure out how

to stay here permanently. asylum is one way, but they need to show that they have an individualized well founded fear of persecution that can take a long time as well. a congress really needs to do is to pass a bill to allow all afghans at risk to be able to stay in the united states permanently. we've done that in the past with other groups like the meets and we should do it now as well. yes, i agree with that statement, you know, one of the things that again, organizers and activists have been pushing for is the an adjustment. and so there's 2 things. one is the again, adjustment act. and then there's also something that is called t p. s, or the temporary protective status, which i think while all can also expand on, but were essentially trying to do is you know, for the organs that have entered the country on parole. they don't have a pathway to legal status. and so what we would like and would hold for port for

this to essentially do is that they should be given a chance to have some sort of pathway, either to legal residency or to citizenship. we know that the situation of genesis is detrimental. we know that there's a lot of violence at the hands of the taliban. and so the very last thing that we want to see is for these very traumatized newly arrived, african refugees in the united states to you know, down the line 6 months from now, 8 months from now be picked up by ice and be detained. and then god forbid supported. and so these are some of the things that we've been pushing for as a community. it's only, you know, up to the vibe in administration and really the congress to be able to, you know, pass this and make sure that afghans who do come here are safe and are able to stay here long term and have some sort of pathway to either legal residency, or to citizenship. i'm just looking had my laptop that that is

a movement amongst lawmakers to acknowledge the responsibility of the united states when it comes to afghans and making sure that they are safe. they want to come to the united states. i have a look here on my laptop, what i am thinking layla is probably what are you saying to the families who you are trying to help get humanitarian payroll? how do you help them? what are you saying to them that they need to do other than having $575.00 each? to put that vacationing? how are you helping them? is that what you right now? what would you say around the world? yeah. well, we do have to explain the reality is that it is a very difficult process and there's a lot of advocacy happening, but we don't know how long it would take, even if someone gets an approval for them to be able to eventually get to the u. s, we've heard stories of people who have approvals, who are in a 3rd country, these are approvals from earlier in the summer. they're in

a 3rd country already and they still haven't been able to get here. so really we have to explain that reality to people. but also we, we just keep telling everyone to do their best to try to keep some sort of documentation of what's happening right now. and that way, if they do apply for humanitarian parole, that they can have a strong application that these applications are being treated at a really difficult threshold to meet. and it's important to have strong evidence of any threat someone might be facing. and that's also going to be important if they have to apply for asylum down the line. and a lot of us are also as the seeing ah, families that might already have some family members in the us and are doing

what we can to, to as to help them. or if, if someone recently arrived and they're trying to get their families here at the same time as they're pursuing humanitarian poll, they should be pursuing their own immigration case. because if they got permanent status here than it might be a lot easier for them to bring their family at that point. oh my goodness. what a challenge. layla. cd cur, lima. thank you so much. a result and round this way, because i want to have a look on my laptop so you can follow all of, i guess on line. this is layla on twitter. so, deaker on twitter and halima as her twitter account, as well. thank you for your comments, your questions, you would be falling on youtube and i really appreciate you guys for being part of asha giving us some insight into a story that made huge news 6 months ago. but we still have to remember the thousands and thousands actually millions of afghans who are not safe to this very

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hi there. i'm kim vanelle. this is l 0. live from dough ha.