Milad and Freshta, Afghanistan

Refugees Welcome was asked to help with a case by wo young, well-educated women, both of whom are Danish citizens with Afghan backgrounds. For more than 20 years, their 75-year-old father had been prevented from living with his wife and his 10 now adult children, nine of whom had become Danish citizens, and had a total of 18 grandchildren. The whole family was now Danish, but the old grandfather was forced to live in an asylum centre.
 
The case began back in 1998, when their mother Freshta came alone to Denmark from Afghanistan with her two eldest children and applied for asylum, but was refused. The following year, their father Milad was captured by the Taliban, who held him captive for two years. This triggered a humanitarian residence permit for Freshta as a single woman and asylum for her children, who had by then become adults. Later, she was allowed to bring her younger children here to join her.
 
When she got back in touch with her husband, they applied for family reunification with him, but their application was rejected. Milad managed to get to Europe, where he applied for asylum in Sweden – and was granted it. However, he was still not allowed to come to Denmark to live with his wife and children. They lost contact for several years and were divorced for a period, but then remarried. In 2011, Milad returned to Denmark, where he was once again denied both asylum and family reunification.
 
The case went back and forth between the immigration authorities' departments until 2023, when the Immigration Appeals Board asked Milad for a hearing and documentation regarding his illness. This is where Refugees Welcome came in.
 
Freshta was then 62 years old, had PTSD, a low metabolism and was receiving early retirement benefits. She was illiterate and had failed her Danish 1 exam. Milad was 75 years old, had diabetes and was on insulin treatment, and was also traumatised.
 
It struck us that no one had resolved the case earlier. The solicitor, whom the family had paid a lot of money, had not even encouraged Freshta to apply for asylum, even though a new policy had been introduced the previous year to grant asylum to all women and girls from Afghanistan. This would have triggered family reunification, as the couple would not be able to reside anywhere other than Denmark. Documentation of the couple's illnesses, on the other hand, would not have made any difference.
 
We took over the case and submitted a response to the hearing, arguing that Freshta would undoubtedly be granted asylum if she applied and that the couple were therefore entitled to family reunification. After only a month and a half, we won our case before the Immigration Appeals Board, and the Immigration Service granted Milad a residence permit a few months later.

Names have been changed for anonymity.