In 2021, as the Taliban was sweeping over Afghanistan and NATO and the US were withdrawing, AUW students—with just the clothes on their backs, their phones, and their chargers—sat stranded on seven buses at security checkpoints at the Kabul airport.

Officials from AUW, a long-time pro bono client of Mayer Brown’s, reached out to us for help.

We began a mass outreach to mobilize contacts such as officials at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon and military commanders and Special Operations Forces on the ground in Afghanistan.

After about three harrowing days on the buses and having been added to a high-priority “fly list,” the students were finally able to clear the last checkpoint, disembark the buses, and make their way into the airport, where US Marines were waiting for them.

A US military plane had been secured to ensure the students’ safe passage to Qatar and Riyadh and eventually to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.

With the students safe in Wisconsin, Mayer Brown formed a coalition of more than 20 major law firms and corporate legal departments, which partnered with the Tahirih Justice Center to help the students apply for asylum in the US.

Despite challenges like contending with an under-resourced US Customs and Immigration Service, the coalition finally secured asylum for the 143 students.

Today, the young women remain on US soil and are enrolled in US colleges and universities, some having received full scholarships.

Mayer Brown and some of the coalition members are now helping the students apply for adjustment of status so that they can obtain legal permanent residency to continue their studies and rebuild their lives in the US.

The firm is also working to get a new group of Afghan students to come to the US after completing their AUW education in Bangladesh.