Maybe you've heard about 27 students from a Sacramento area school who are trapped in Afghanistan. I'd seen the story and assumed it was some kind of exotic field trip, complete with teacher supervision. It sounded bad, an ugly situation. Nope, my assumption was wrong.
“This is really a complicated situation,” said SJUSD Deputy Superintendent Melissa Bassanelli. With about 1,400 students of Afghan origin within the district, Bassanelli said it’s normal for these students to go visit their home country every summer. And this year was no exception, especially as the situation in Afghanistan started to become more tense.
The reality is they went to visit relatives in the old country and couldn't get out. It isn't like they are marooned there with no support, they're "connected." They have a family support network, speak the language and are ethnically, if not culturally, indistinguishable from locals.
I can imagine the Taliban using the kids as hostages to coerce their parents in CA to do traitorous or terrorist stuff. It is claimed the Chinese have used these tactics on ethnic Chinese living in the U.S. who have relatives in China. It is a downside to living in a country like ours with foreign-born immigrants from all over the world, relatives left behind can be leverage.
