Sayed fled Afghanistan, found safety in Australia and built a life. Then it was snatched away

Sayed* was home. At least he thought he was.

He held the piece of paper in his hand: an invitation to an Australian citizenship ceremony.

After five years in Australia, having fled religious persecution in Afghanistan as a teenager, this was proof he finally belonged.

But then it all suddenly unravelled.

A week later, Sayed went to the ceremony.

Sayed is one of a number of Afghans left in limbo because the Australian government does not recognise the validity of their identity documents, even though they have spent many years building new lives, starting families and establishing businesses in Australia.

Sayed arrived in Australia alone in June 2009. He was 17, and had never left his home city before.

A man known to his schoolteacher had arranged his travel documents and passage out of the country. Sayed made a claim for protection at Sydney airport, which was swiftly assessed and processed. After a few months in detention, he was granted a protection visa, allowing him to live in Australia permanently.

Slowly, Sayed began to find his way. He enrolled in a trade school, earning qualifications as a licensed builder.

Later he established his own construction business, which started small, but blossomed.

In 2014, Sayed applied for citizenship. After some hurdles on the initial test, his application was approved by the department and signed off by the minister. He was invited to the ceremony in the Sydney suburb of Merrylands.

When it was suddenly cancelled, the life he had built fell apart.

He was forced to liquidate a million-dollar loan he had taken out to finance his thriving business.

The government alleged that Sayed was, in fact, the brother of a man with whom he had shared an apartment in Sydney. Sayed told the department he met the man in Australia, had no family connection to him and never knew him in Afghanistan.

Sayed and the man took a DNA test to demonstrate they were not related, but the administrative appeals tribunal, which by now had carriage of his case, refused to consider that evidence.

In many parts of Afghanistan, record-keeping is sporadic at best. Births are often not registered with any central authority, birthdates are approximate, and the information recorded on identity documents inconsistent and haphazard.

The issue has only become more complicated since the fall of the democratically elected government to the Taliban last year.

Yet Australia insists upon relying on these documents.

The test applied at the citizenship stage is more robust than at the visa application stage. Some migration agents tell Afghan nationals to remain on a permanent residency visa rather than applying for citizenship, because of the risk their documents will be re-examined and assessed as being fraudulent.

Lee says incorrect or incomplete information often follows Afghan nationals as they then apply for other identity documents, which rely on the taskira.

The Afghanistan of 2022 - back in the hands of the unreformed and unrepentant Taliban - is far less safe than the country Sayed fled more than a decade ago.

But in his new country, the place he thought was his home, he has found no peace or certainty. On a bridging visa, and with no right to work, he lives a precarious life of enforced penury.