FREMONT — For nearly a decade, Mohammad Nazir Azami worked as an interpreter for the United States in Afghanistan to help modernize the country’s fledgling justice system. But by June 2018, the Taliban had gained ground in provinces where he worked, and explosions happened more frequently during insurgent attacks.

So he made the difficult decision to leave the only home he had ever known. With the approval of a Special Immigrant Visa, he was able to move with his wife, Shabnam, and their three young children to the U.S and settle in Fremont — where Afghans long have clustered during multiple waves of refugee crises.

But today, with the Taliban in control of the country again amid a hasty U.S. withdrawal that has seen deadly explosions and shootings near Kabul’s airport, Azami is more terrified than ever for the fate of other family members left behind.

“I was hoping at that time that I would eventually be able to help them come over to the U.S. But when I came here, I learned that is not something easy,” said Azami, who couldn’t bring his extended family with him as the U.S. visa program only allowed immediate family members to join.

Both his and Shabnam’s parents still live in Kabul, along with several brothers, sisters and children, 13 close relatives in all.

He is now pleading with the U.S. government to help them get out and for the Biden administration to extend its Aug. 31 deadline for its airlift withdrawal.

“We risked our lives, we worked for the U.S. directly, or indirectly there, and now it is their responsibility to just help our people,” Azami said. “They need to hear our voice and help us. They could have done things in a better way, planned in a better way. But now, everything is worse, we don’t have a government, and the U.S. is turning its back on our people.”

FREMONT, CA – AUGUST 26: Mohammad Nazir Azami, right, is photographed with his wife Shabnam Azami, on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, in Fremont, Calif. Mohammad Nazir Azami worked in Afghanistan for a U.S. government contractor and was able to move to the U.S. with a specialized visa. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group) 

Though the U.S. has taken roughly 100,000 people out of the country in the past couple of weeks — including both American and Afghans — thousands more who fear they may be targeted by the Taliban for their work with the U.S., Afghan government or the international community remain stranded in the country.

Faced with few options to get help for his family, Azami reached out to East Bay Congressman Eric Swalwell’s office, offering up all his documentation and work history with the U.S. in Afghanistan.

Swalwell’s staff, which has seen roughly 6,000 requests for help from people trying to get others out of Afghanistan, forwarded his information to the State Department.

But there are no guarantees for safe passage for Azami’s family.

“You don’t know how long it will take and what will be their final answer to you. Will they say, OK, or no, or when,” Azami said. “This is an emergency situation.”

Azami worked directly with U.S. Department of State contractors, helping them update their databases, laws and procedures in Afghanistan — a job that helped him gain his special visa. But his extended family members were not eligible for one themselves. Azami said his brother worked with an international law organization at the Bagram detention center, where Taliban fighters were imprisoned.

In 2018 and 2019, his brother received threatening letters from the Taliban, telling him to leave the job, so his family moved to Kabul from their home in Kapisa province.

His wife’s brother worked for the Afghan government in its ministry of public works, and she fears the Taliban will soon come knocking on her family’s door, looking for government allies. Her father worked as a human rights commissioner.

She’s hoping President Biden will hear her pleas for help.

“Mr. President, you have a family, like our family. What would you do for your family?,” Shabnam Azami said.

Sitting on a park bench in the sun Thursday, Shabnam began to cry, recalling a phone conversation with her mother the day before. Shabnam told her she felt like a bad daughter because she can’t help her get safely out of the country.

Mohammad and Shabnam’s children — 4-year-old Hadia, 8-year-old Omer and 9-year-old Aisha — attend school in Fremont, while their families in Afghanistan are mostly confined to their homes, not going to work and not sending their children to school because of the looming fear of the Taliban.

FREMONT, CA – AUGUST 26: Shabnam Azami, left, is photographed with her husband Mohammad Nazir Azami and daughter Hadia Azami ,4, on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, in Fremont, Calif. Mohammad Nazir Azami worked in Afghanistan for a U.S. government contractor and was able to move to the U.S. with a specialized visa. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group) 

“Who will support my family when they cannot go outside to work?,” asked Shabnam, whose family has tried unsuccessfully to leave the country.

During the first week after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Shabnam’s family went to the airport in Kabul and tried to get into the gates for three days.

Azami’s relatives also have tried a couple of times to get to the airport but were turned back at Taliban roadblocks because they lacked documentation, he said.

They stopped trying because it’s become far too dangerous.

“If you have a problem, you don’t know where to report that, who to go to, who to ask for security or help. Literally there is no government, no president, no police,” Azami said.

“Living under this fear of being chased by the Taliban, being retaliated against by the Taliban, that is on the top of all that,” he said. “These people are all around them.”

He said multiple administrations have failed to make good on President Obama’s commitment to bring the war in Afghanistan to a “responsible end.”

FREMONT, CA – AUGUST 26: Shabnam Azami, wipes tears from her eyes as she talks about family members in Afghanistan on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, in Fremont, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group) 
He criticized President Trump’s deal with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government and freed Taliban fighters and said Biden’s execution of the withdrawal could have been more orderly.

“They should have done better than this,” he said.

“Everything has collapsed. So that is now their moral obligation, other than the legal obligation, to help our families,” he said.

He and Shabnam are afraid to even speak their fears for their family’s safety aloud.

“We are hopeful,” Azami said “Because that is the only thing we can have. To be hopeful.”