When the Taliban took Kabul in 2021, the world watched as Afghans clung to departing planes, hoping desperation might carry them to safety. We were among the lucky ones. We made it out.

At the time, I, Sediqa, held a leadership role at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), advancing women’s economic empowerment in one of the world’s most dangerous countries for women. And I, Mursal, was a university student and climate advocate whose future vanished overnight with the Taliban’s return. Because of our work and activism, as well as our Hazara identity as a persecuted ethnic and religious minority, we were granted priority evacuation.

That flight — nearly 7,000 miles to a military base in Virginia — brought safety for the two of us, but our parents and three younger siblings were left behind. Even in that moment of crisis, safety was rationed.

We were reminded of that distance again last year, when an Afghan refugee who previously worked with the U.S. military allegedly shot and killed one member of the National Guard and severely injured another in Washington. Like many Afghans in the United States, our reaction was twofold: grief for a life lost and families shattered, and fear over how quickly one horrific act could be used to cast suspicion on an entire........

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