Hunted by the Taliban, Afghans who worked with embassy sue Ottawa over immigration delays

Afghans who worked with theCanadian embassy in Kabul and are now hiding from the Taliban are suingthe federal government, accusing Ottawa of dragging its feet on their immigration claims and demanding that it settle them without delay.

Newly unsealed court documents say24 former employees of a law firm retained by the embassy and one guard employed by the embassy are living in fear because they've been givenno indication from the federal government that they'll be able to move here.

"Canada is proud to be among the first countries to launch a humanitarian resettlement program for Afghan refugees," Deputy Minister of Immigration Christiane Fox toldToronto lawyers Sujit Choudhry and Maureen Silcoff in a letter datedDec. 2, 2022.

The lawyershad written to her seeking information about their clientsafter launchinga lawsuit in September over what they saw as unreasonable delays in processing their immigration claims.

Fox asked the lawyers to have each of the 25 plaintiffs most of them stillliving in hiding in Afghanistan sign representative forms giving their consent forthe lawyers to receive updates about their cases from the government.

"The matters you have raised in your letter pertain to application processing and operations rather than matters arising in the context of the litigation," Fox wrote.

The statement of claim filed by the two lawyers which was posted publicly in a less redacted form only this week reveals new details about their clients.

Twenty-four of them were employees of a former Afghan law firm, Shajjan and Associates, which was retained by the Government of Canada from 2013 to 2021 to represent theembassy in legal matters in Afghanistan. Those matters included everythingfrom traffic accidents involving diplomatic staff to real-estate transactions.

The other is a security guard who was employed by the embassy for a decade and was praised for their "tremendous" work in a letter signed by former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan Glenn V. Davidson. The letter singled out the guard's actions in an unspecified emergency on April 15, 2012.

That's theday then-foreign affairs minister John Bairdcondemned a number of terror attacks on the Afghan Parliament andwestern embassies.

In an affidavit filed with the court, the guard, identified only as 'AA' in thedocument, said a manager told them on August 15, 2021that all employees of the embassy would be brought to Canada following Kabul's fall to the Taliban and the closure of the diplomatic mission.

"I believed this to be true," AA wrote.

The guard said in the affidavitthat,unable to leave Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover,they went into hiding andappliedunder Canada'sSpecial Immigration Measures for employees of the Canadian government or Armed Forces, along withtheir loved ones.

The guard wrote they and their family members destroyed the sim cards fortheir mobile phones after they received acall sometime last year from someone claiming to be a member of the Taliban.

"The caller said they would find me, which terrified me," the guard wrote.

The names of all claimants have been redacted from the 1,289-page statement of claim. Their lawyers say they're in danger of Taliban retaliation due to their work at the embassy in Kabul.

Homes searched by the Taliban

In the statement of claim,Choudhry and Silcoffreport most of the homes of the 24 former legal staff have been searched by the Taliban.

Two of the former staff membershave been interrogated by the regime.

"The Taliban kidnapped one applicant and tortured him over the course of more than two months," the lawyers wrote. They offered no details.

WATCH | Afghans who worked for Canadian embassy in Kabul say they're hunted by Taliban:

Afghans who worked at Kabul embassy sue Canada

1 year ago

Duration 1:55

Afghans who worked for the Canadian embassy in Kabul are suing the federal government, accusing Ottawa of letting their immigration applications languish as theyre hunted by the Taliban.

Most of the ex-employees of Shajjan and Associates said in the court documentsthey frequently change addressesto stay one step ahead ofthe Taliban.

One, identified as OO in the documents, said they began moving around after the Taliban arrived at their family's home and pointed guns, demanding to know their whereabouts.

"Their search lasted two and a half hours. They went through all of our belongings and even searched between the pages of books," another former employee, EE, wrote.

"Ever since I went into hiding, I kept track of phone calls from Taliban members. I would save their numbers on my phone so that I would know not to answer their calls," wrote another former employee, TT.

"The Taliban has been incessantly interrogating and harassing me for information about the firm," wrote a former employee of the firm identified only asUU, who is also in hiding in Afghanistan. An acquaintance told the TalibanUU had fled to neighbouring Pakistan.

Severalof the claimants said they face a heightened risk because they are Hazara and Shia, ethnic and religious minorities targeted by the Taliban.

Most of the claimants told the courtthey are registered with the Afghan Independent Bar Association. The Taliban regime obtained a list of association members after it came to power.

Plaintiffs say they want freedom not money

Silcofftold CBC Newstheclaimantsaren't looking for money from the federal government they just wanta decision on their applications.

"We're asking the court to compel the federal government to make good on its promise to bring people to Canada who had a significant and enduring relationship with the government of Canada," she said.

Most of the plaintiffsare now past the first step of the Special Immigration Measures program and have received an invitation to apply from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Silcoff said oneof the plaintiffs has received the green light to come to Canada but she would not say if the applicant has arrived here yet.

Silcoff noted that the federal government only started to move on the plaintiffs' applications after they sued.

"These are people who made Canada's work in Afghanistan possible," she said.

"Without these people and others like them, Canada wouldn't have been able to do the work it did for so many years."

Saeeq Shajjan, the founding head of the law firm, did manage to get to Canada in 2021. Now based in Toronto, he said he's working to bringhis former employees to safetyhere.

"Most of my time is taken up by this work. I'm concerned about the safety of my people in Afghanistan," the visiting Harvard University scholartold CBC News.

One of the plaintiffs, identified only as HH in the court documents, spoke to CBC News from a remote location in Afghanistan.

"We were happy that we were the face of a reputable embassy in Afghanistan and a government like Canada. We were working with and we were representing it. It was such an honour for us," he said.

HH recalled Shajjan calling all employees to an office meeting room on August 14, 2021and announcing thatthe building would shut down "for a few days." He said Shajjantold staffto work from home until concerns about the Taliban had abated.

"We were not sure that the Taliban could take over all Kabul," he said.

HH said he went into hiding and temporarily escapedto Iran in September 2022. He returned to Afghanistan to avoid the tensions in Iran.

HH said that while he has heard fromAfghans inCanada that starting a life here can be challenging, he's more than ready to start.

"I'm sure that whenever I don't have the fear of prosecution by a terrorist group, I can do something for my life," he said.

The federal government would not comment on this case as it is before the courts.

Ottawa reports it has settled more than 30,000 Afghans since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Its stated goal is to bringin at least 40,000 Afghans.

Roughly10,060 of them have come to Canada through the Special Immigration Measures program.

CBC News has asked the Immigration Department a number of general questions about the immigration programand will update this story if it receives answers.