by Austin Kocher, Bashir Mobasher, Sofía Guerra, Makenna Lindsay, Diana Garay Flores, and Ernesto Castañeda*

Although tens of thousands of Afghans were brought to the United States before and after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, many remain in legal limbo, and some are still struggling to resettle in this country. We still know little about the lives of Afghans in the United States, even two years after the military final withdrawal.  

Washington, D.C. is an area with one of the largest Afghan communities in the country. In order to fill in the gap in knowledge about recently arrived Afghans in the United States, researchers at the Immigration Lab and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University interviewed Afghan immigrants through the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) region and beyond about their experiences. We use pseudonyms rather than names to keep confidentiality.  

This first report from the project presents the preliminary results of interviews with 21 Afghans to discuss their educational and work experiences in Afghanistan and after arriving in the United States. Most Afghan migrants in our study had a high educational attainment. Most of our interviewees—87% of the total—had at least a bachelor’s degree, while nearly half (10) also had a master’s degree.  

Our interviewees often situated their own educational attainment relative to their parents’ educational attainment as a way to demonstrate the value of intergenerational progress and social mobility. One 32-year-old male refugee, Abdul, who, like his father, had completed a master’s degree, described the impacts of years of war on Afghanistan and child-rearing duties as placing limits on his mother’s education. His mother completed the equivalent of high school but could not pursue additional education “because Afghanistan has struggled with four wars,” and she had to “take care of five to six children.” At the time of the interview, Abdul was working in the food service industry, which he reported enjoying, although he also aspired to join the army and pursue further education once his immigration status is resolved.  

Most participants reported higher educational attainment than their parents, either by studying abroad or in Afghanistan. The above image shows the educational attainment of interviewees and their parents. Only the 12 participants where full data was available are shown in the graph; the remaining nine included only partial data. 

Despite high educational attainment, many of our research participants worked jobs that did not appear to capture their full employment potential. Three participants were unemployed. Two worked in the gig economy as Uber or DoorDash drivers, while others worked part-time or in customer service shifts. Nearly all expressed an interest in pursuing higher education and more competitive careers in government service, journalism, or business. Others reported more stable professional positions, including security guards, senior project coordinators, customer service specialists, and human resources.  

Even if they aspired to have more competitive jobs later in life, many of the Afghans we spoke with described their determination to work jobs that were available to them as a function of their ongoing responsibility to their families both in the United States and in Afghanistan. As with many other immigrants, the Afghans we spoke with felt a responsibility to provide for their family as they settled into the DMV and often reported sending money to support family members who could not leave as they had been able to.  

A 35-year-old male refugee, Sayed, described the responsibility he and many other Afghans felt towards their families still in Afghanistan. Sayed had only been in the United States since 2021 and, like many of the people we interviewed, had received his education abroad rather than in Afghanistan. He completed his master’s degree in India and hoped to pursue a Ph.D. However, his current situation demanded more practical considerations. When asked about his work schedule, he described “working hard” with lots of “overtime that only left him just one day free each week. When asked if he felt he was working hard enough, he replied, “No, it is not enough. But we are in a tough position right now. We have problems. You know, the situation in Afghanistan is not normal. We have to be hard working; we have to help our families in Afghanistan. I am working here to support my family, my friends, and my colleagues in Afghanistan.” 

Similarly, Ahmad arrived in the United States in 2021 and settled immediately in the D.C. area. When asked if he sent remittances to Afghanistan, he said, “Yeah, sure. Why not? The situation is still terrible. No jobs, no work, no money. So, I have to support my family, my mom, even my brothers. They need healthcare, they need food, they need a lot of things. But there is none. So, I have to support my family.” Ahmad went on to describe the responsibility he felt for family members in the United States as well as abroad. “And I have to provide financial support right here in America, as well as to my sons, my daughter, my wife, and my mom.” Ahmad works as a customer support specialist and as an interpreter for a furniture company. 

Although educational attainment is typically thought of as a resource for immigrants who are joining the U.S. labor market, educational and work-related background may also be in the list of factors that forced immigrants to leave their country in the first place. A 32-year-old Afghan woman, Zahra, represented an important segment of our interviewees who had parents with relatively high education.Zahra’s mother possessed a master’s degree in criminology, and her father possessed a bachelor’s degree, while Zahra had completed a master’s degree in the United States. Under the Taliban regime, highly-educated women are seen with distrust and may be targeted.  

Although from Afghanistan, Zahra reported spending much of her early childhood in Pakistan. Interestingly, the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan prompted her family to return to the country. “After the U.S. captured Kabul,” she said, “we thought it was our time to go back to Kabul.” Her family’s education and careers shaped how they experienced Afghanistan before and after the withdrawal.  

“My mom was a governmental official, and I used to work with the U.S. embassy, and my brother was also working with the U.S. embassy. So when the Taliban captured the city, the first thing that came to my mind was that they would harm my family… During the evacuation, the U.S. government was trying to evacuate all of those people who were working with the U.S. government and their allies.” 

She went on to describe how their jobs working with the United States government exacerbated their risks once the U.S. military left. 

“We have been threatened. The night before coming to the Kabul airport, the Taliban came to our house. They were asking for my mother, and that was very scary. My mother has like the governmental vehicle and some laptops and stuff, but they actually came just to see if my mother was still in Kabul. But they just made an excuse that they were here to ask for the car, documents, and stuff. Then they also asked about us, about me and my brother.” 

Zahra’s story illustrates the ways in which the educational attainment and careers of Afghan individuals create cycles of opportunity and precarity. In Zahra’s case, her family’s education created opportunities for work with the U.S. government, which then contributed to their vulnerability after the military withdrawal and may now help her resettle in the United States and join the labor market here. In a future report we will explore further whether their education fits the jobs they obtain in the U.S. 

About the Study 

This report is part of a larger research project titled Immigration to the DMV. The project relies on a mixed-methods research project conducted by faculty and students from the Immigration Lab and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS) at American University. Researchers solicited information about migrants’ identities and experiences using a survey form that collected quantitative data and asked open-ended follow-up questions to collect narrative-rich qualitative data. This project was supported by the Mellon Foundation through the College of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty-Student Scholarly Collaboration Grant from the Office of the Deputy Provost and Dean of Faculty at American University. The larger team includes Tazreena Sajjad, Mubbashir Rizvi, Lauren Carruth, Daniel Jenks, Joseph Fournier, Montse Hernandez, and over 30 students working at the Immigration Lab. We aim to interview more Afghans and compare them to other immigrant and asylum-seeking groups. 

* Austin Kocher, Bashir Mobasher, Sofía Guerra, Makenna Lindsay, Diana Garay Flores, and Ernesto Castañeda are part of the team at American University’s Immigration Lab, housed in the Center for Latin American & Latino Studies.

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