Hunted by the Taliban, a family finally finds refuge in Louisiana: ‘This is freedom’

BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER | Staff writer Mar 9, 2025

Hundreds of people gather near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane at the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 16, 2021.

For nearly four years, a couple and their two children have lived in hiding.

A year spent almost entirely indoors. Other times moving constantly to evade Pakistani immigration officials. Countless nights silencing their children’s cries, desperate to remain unseen and avoid deportation or capture.

That’s how former Afghan prosecutor Freshta, her husband Hadi and their two small children have existed since 2021, hunted by the Taliban since the terrorist group took control of the country.

But on Thursday night, as the couple and their 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter walked through the gates of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, their nightmare finally ended.

“This is how freedom looks like,” Hadi said to his wife. “There’s no police coming for you, and there’s no fear of being deported to Afghanistan.”

Before the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, Freshta was one of many prosecutors in Kabul who worked alongside American military officials to prosecute crimes committed by the terrorist group.

The family has asked to be identified only by their first names and requested not to appear in photos because of continued fears of retaliation.

The couple were at ground zero when Kabul fell in 2021 as American troops withdrew. They were within earshot when a suicide bomb detonated on Aug. 26, 2021, and killed 13 Americans and 170 Afghan civilians.

It was then that Freshta and 1,500 Afghan prosecutors were forced to flee their homeland after the Taliban’s takeover. Her family had no other choice but to abandon everything they knew to escape the ever-present threat to her life, and they have since lived as refugees in Pakistan.

Though distanced from the Taliban’s doorstep, the couple described their lives in Afghanistan’s neighboring country as “hell.”

But this week, their dreams were finally realized, thanks to the help of Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore and group of fellow U.S. prosecutors hellbent on getting families like theirs to safety.

Freshta and Hadi, both 32, were overcome with relief as they spoke to a welcoming party of about a dozen people at the airport Thursday night as Moore stood beside them.

“I don’t know what to say,” Hadi said, struggling to speak through tears. “We made it. Because of a few people it was possible.”

Like living in ‘a prison’

The process of immigrating to the U.S. is no easy task, even for allies like Freshta who worked with the American military.

Freshta’s life has been in greater danger than most, Moore said, as she was one of the first women to prosecute a case involving violence against women.

“Afghanistan did not prosecute rapes and sexual assaults because the word of any woman was only valued at one half of any man,” Moore said.

Moore is a member of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, a group that has worked tirelessly in recent years to help this group of Afghan prosecutors immigrate to the U.S.

A university professor and journalist, Hadi’s life was threatened by the Taliban too.

Outside of a dangerous period where Hadi was forced to return to Afghanistan to secure his passport, the two have lived in a handful of homes in Pakistan.

Though they were distanced from the terrorist group, living in Pakistan offered little relief, the couple said.

Tensions between the two neighboring countries have been high, said David LaBahn, president of the APA. Pakistan only reluctantly accepts refugees, and has now deported many of them.

Nearly all of Freshta and Hadi’s family still live in Afghanistan, where the Taliban continues to actively look for them.

In recent years, Freshta’s brother has been captured and beaten five times by Taliban members who sought to uncover her and her husband’s whereabouts, she said.

Signs made to welcome a family from Afghanistan to Baton Rouge pictured on March 6, 2025.

Fears of being deported back to the Taliban’s doorstep have surged.

LaBahn said Pakistan has made March 21 the deadline for Afghan refugees to be deported.

“Every night till 3 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m., we were just awake and thinking about what will happen,” Freshta said.

The couple did the best they could to keep their children from crying even inside the walls of their temporary housing in Pakistan, hoping to remain invisible to authorities knocking on doors to deport refugees.

“Crying is natural and necessary for human beings. But because of the police coming, going, knocking the doors because of deportation, we couldn’t let the kids cry freely,” Hadi said. “Every time we say ‘No, just be silent. Don’t cry.’”

As threats of deportation and being turned over to the Taliban increased, the couple went almost a year without stepping foot outside of their temporary home.

“We couldn’t leave the house,” Freshta said. “That was such a prison.”

Hopes killed and resurrected

Moore said he has known of Freshta for about a year. Like others in the APA, the DA operates on a belief that the U.S. has a responsibility to help the prosecutors find refuge in this country after aiding the American military.

LaBahn said this shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it unfortunately has become so, especially recently.

A Trump Administration order on Jan. 20 halted the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program that allowed prosecutors like Freshta and her family to find safe haven in the U.S.

“This sweeping executive order and the effects of this executive order are trapping them, and it’s really bad,” LaBahn said.

LaBahn said the Taliban has killed 54 Afghan prosecutors since 2021, and 50 prosecutor families remain in danger.

After trying to find passage for nearly a year, it looked as though a door opened for Freshta and Hadi when they received a call from APA advocates in mid-January with instructions to race to the Islamabad airport.

The time was now, they were told.

But almost in an instant, their dreams were extinguished.

Baggage packed and ready to go, the couple wept as they texted Moore after they heard they could not go to the U.S., due to Trump’s order.

“You dream about something, dream big, and you have hope, you have plans … you’re ready to start a new life,” Hadi said. “And something happens, and someone says to you ‘No, stop there.’”

The development also was a punch to the gut of Moore, who at the time said he was “almost certain” the family would be killed if deported back to Afghanistan.

After they were denied passage, Freshta and Hadi were forced to continue living in limbo in Pakistan with hope dwindling and pressure of deportation back to Afghanistan surging, as the March 21 deadline approached.

“We didn’t know what would happen,” Hadi said. “It was total uncertainty.”

But at the beginning of February, a lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Washington state, challenging the Trump Administration’s order.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Jamal N. Whitehead granted an injunction, pausing Trump’s immigration order and opening the door for refugees like Freshta and Hadi to come to the U.S. if they acted quickly.

The same day, the couple went to the airport in Islamabad, where Pakistani officials told them Trump ended the American refugee program. But after some convincing, they were finally able to board a plane for Qatar and then another for Seattle, still worried they could be stopped and sent home at any moment.

“Every step of this trip was full of anxiety and tension,” Hadi said. “This was our last chance.”

On American soil

On Wednesday, they landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The idea was that arriving in the city where a judge had temporarily blocked Trump’s order would improve their chances of clearing immigration.

Local attorneys who volunteer for the APA waited outside customs at the airport, ready to spring into action if immigration officials wouldn’t let them through.

Hadi said it was “the last important step” of their journey. The husband and wife waited and prayed as authorities brought the family into a room, took their phones and left to review their documents. Thirty minutes passed before a customs official came back.

“He said ‘You came late. There’s no process. You’re not allowed to enter,’” Hadi said.

The couple asked him to retrieve one of their phones where they had a copy of the court ruling from days prior.

The officer read the order and contacted officials in Washington, D.C., Hadi said.

The family waited for two more hours on pins and needles, until the customs officer finally returned.

“Congratulations. Your documents have been processed,” he told them.

The husband and wife erupted in tears.

“It was a beautiful moment,” Freshta said.

Overcome with relief, Hadi likened the feeling to weightlessness or being given “a cold glass of water after years in the desert.”

During a brief phone call Wednesday, the typically stoic Moore sounded relieved himself.

“They made it through,” he said.

A new life in Baton Rouge

APA volunteers met the couple outside the airport terminal and took them to a hotel, where they stayed until traveling to Baton Rouge the next day.

Now in Baton Rouge, Freshta and Hadi are living in a hotel as Moore and others look for more permanent housing for them.

A GoFundMe has been launched to support them in rebuilding their lives. The DA and others are asking for locals to drop off clothing for the family, household items and other donations to the Louisiana District Attorneys Association office at 2525 Quail Drive in Baton Rouge.

Moore hopes to secure a sponsor for Freshta and help her find work as a support staffer in the DA’s Office while she pursues a law degree in the U.S.

Hadi said he is interested in going back to school here and furthering his media education or studying something new.

On Friday afternoon, after spending their first night in Louisiana, the couple sat at the kitchen table in their hotel room. Leaning back in their chairs, they held hands while their daughter napped in the next room and their son played on the floor beside them.

“This is freedom,” Hadi said. “We have not slept good like this in many years.”