Afghan interpreter who fled fighting to help get translators out of country

An Afghan interpreter who fled the country days before the collapse of Kabul spoke to Fox News Thursday in a bid to get more translators out of the Middle East safely.

Moneer, who recently evacuated to the U.K., and former U.S. Army Ranger Matt Griffin both joined "America’s Newsroom" to discuss the roadblocks facing translators fleeing the country.

"Right now more than 18,000 applicants are left behind," Moneer said. "I’m going to fight for them to not be left behind… their situation is so bad."

Moneer pushed back on Taliban claims of being cooperative with interpreters, saying many translators he's spoken to have not been able to get to the airport because of checkpoints. He said people have also been beaten by the Taliban.

"It’s hard to trust the Taliban," Moneer said. "They promised a lot of stuff in the past as well, but this is not correct."

Moneer worked with the U.S. in Afghanistan for 12 years but said he was never given a visa by the State Department.

"I've done a lot for the U.S. government, but they never give [sic] me that chance," he said.

Griffin, an Afghanistan veteran and friend of a Green Beret who worked with Moneer, had been efforting a fundraiser to get Moneer and his family to safety after striking out with the State Department.

"It’s shameful," Griffin said. "Moneer worked for the United Kingdom for three months and they were able to get him out in two weeks… we did everything we possibly could and it was easier for them to say no on paperwork than it was to do the work."

Griffin fears for the safety of interpreters still in Afghanistan and blasted the U.S. troop withdrawal for creating a "kill zone" for U.S. allies.

"We enabled the Taliban to come in and we're funneling all of their target interpreters through one single checkpoint," he said. "We are violating major military fundamentals by what we just did."

The U.S. State Department confirmed a backlog of tens of thousands of visa applications from Afghans who have been trying for years to leave the country ahead of the Aug. 31 U.S. pullout deadline.

"We are leaving our comrades to fall into the hands of the enemy," Griffin said. "This is wrong. These guys are our brothers. They go out of the same helicopters. They come out of the same vehicles. They're in the same gunfights. And then we just left them behind? I don't even know how I could communicate the feeling of what this does to the warrior community."

 Fox News’ Dom Calicchio contributed to this report.