By Suzi Morales and Michael Fisch
When Army Captain James Lockett, JD ’22, ended his first deployment in Afghanistan in 2014, a key partner remained behind: Ahmad, the Afghan native who served as a translator and intermediary for his unit [his name has been changed to protect his identity].
Ahmad lived on the US military base with the troops, “serving as a critical set of eyes and ears,” Lockett says. “He spent every day doing the same patrols that we were doing, unarmed, so arguably he was in more danger than we were."
In 2015, Ahmad was permitted to immigrate alone to Atlanta, yet members of his family had to remain behind. Their plight worsened in 2021 after the US withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban began retaliating against those who had assisted American forces during the war.
Fearing that Ahmad’s family would be killed if no action were taken, Lockett—by now a student at Suffolk Law—worked with veterans groups to have Ahmad's wife and four children, ages 7 to 12, transported to Pakistan. Last October, as the State Department prepared to fly the family to Albania, Lockett’s sister, who serves in the Navy, used her contacts to make sure they were on the flight manifest. There they interviewed for special immigrant visas and awaited final approval. In late December, they were reunited in Atlanta with Ahmad, who had received his US citizenship earlier in the year.
“We owed this to him and his family,” Lockett says. “The only reason their lives were at risk is because Ahmad was assisting the US military. We couldn’t leave them behind.”
At his graduation last May, Lockett received the Law School’s Public Citizenship Award. Now as an associate at Holland & Knight, he continues to work on pro bono immigration matters involving Afghans seeking special immigrant visas.
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Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
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