The following page provides information for Afghan national former employees or contractors of Tundra SCA.

The following page provides information for Afghan national former employees of Tundra SCA.

Tundra SCA was an Afghan security company which worked in Afghanistan between around 2007 and 2016.

In response to a number of inquiries we have recevied in relation to the possibility of providing assistance to former staff of Tundra SCA we would like to make the following comments:

The management and owners of Tundra International Inc would like to express our sympathy to all those who may being experiencing hardships or insecurity as a result of the recent political changes in Afghanistan.

However we must also inform any former Tundra SCA staff that we are unable to offer any specific assistance or support either, for reasons that we will explain below:

• Despite a widely-held misconception that Tundra SCA was a Canadian company, because it had a Canadian CEO and some other managers were Canadian, in fact Tundra SCA was an independent Afghan company with Afghan owners.
• Tundra SCA was acquired in early 2016 by Janus Global Operations, an American company.
• The “Tundra Group” brand today has new owners and managers who have no connection to or responsbility for Tundra SCA’s operations between 2007 and 2016.
• Tundra today has no administrative records in relation to Tundra SCA’s operations in Afghanistan, including no Human Resources databases.
• None of the former Tundra SCA’s international managers or supervisors are still Tundra Group employees.
• In short, we are not the same company and not the same people. There is no legal connection between Tundra today in Canada and Tundra SCA in Afghanistan.

In terms of specific requests for assistance:

Letters of Recommendation

We cannot assist with Letters of Recommendation for visa purposes.

Why? Recommendations letters can only be written by people who knew the applicant personally and who can verify their character and conduct. We do not know any Tundra SCA staff personally so we cannot provide this type of assistance.

P2 Application Assistance

We cannot assist with P2 applications.

Why? P2 applications can only be signed / proposed by American citizens connected to a specific project or programme, and P2 applications are generally intended to be for media or humanitarian workers not for security company employees.

Provision of Contact Details for Former Tundra SCA International Supervisors

We cannot provide contact details for former international Tundra SCA supervisors and managers.

Why? Tundra SCA was a different company, and in many cases these projects took place over 10 years ago. There is no reason why we would hold contact details for these former Tundra SCA managers. Even if we did retain this information it would be a breach of data protection laws in Canada, the United States and the European Union for us to distribute these details to external parties without permission.

Direct sponsorship or assistance with visas

We cannot offer direct assistance with the submission of visa application with the United States or Canada.

Why? We do not have the resources, necessary administrative connections, legal or moral responsibility to assist individual applicants whom we do not know and cannot vouch for personally.

Sub-contractors or Suppliers

We cannot offer assistance to any organisations or individuals who were sub-contractors or suppliers to Tundra SCA.

Why? Simply, we do not have the ability to verify these requests and it is beyond the scope of our resources to do so.

What can we do?

Unfortunately not much.

As a humanitarian gesture since 2021 we were able to facilitate Human Resources letters to verify the employment of a small number of former Tundra SCA staff members, however this has been a difficult, time-consuming process and normally requires the applicant to have a comprehensive set of existing documentation including reference letters that we are able to check.

Accordingly we prioritised requests from those who demonstrated with verifiable documentation that they worked more than 3 years for Tundra SCA, or held roles as an interpreter or manager because these are: 1. easier to verify, 2. the applicants are probably likely to be at greater risk and 3. they have a greater likelihood of being accepted into a U.S./CAN/EU/UK visa programme.

We have also supported some inquiries in cases where an applicant already has a visa sponsor, or where they need a Human Resources letter to fill in a gap of employment in an existing application case (e.g. a situation for example where an applicant was a military interpreter or international NGO employee for several years but had also worked briefly for Tundra SCA.) In this case employment with Tundra SCA was not the primary reason for the application.

As of 31st December 2021 we are no longer accepting new requests for assistance and as of March 2022 we have a backlog of inquiries which we will continue to review as and when we have the resources to do so.

We should also note that many of the requests for assistance we have received have been very historic (e.g. from the 2006 to 2010 period) and we have been informed that any former Tundra SCA staff could have requested a basic Human Resources letter setting out their former employment status at any point until March 2016 that would today be sufficient for U.S. or Canadian visa application purposes.

FAQs

Can I call you about this?

Please don’t call. Our staff today do not know anything about Tundra SCA’s operations and it will not make us deal with your inquiry any faster.

As of 31st December 2021 we no longer have the capacity to accept new requests for assistance. If you have contacted us prior to this date this means we have reviewed your request and we will contact you only if we think we can assist you.

Why are you not helping more?

We are not the same people nor the same company as Tundra SCA.

Also, we are just not able to. We do not have any necessary records or databases, we do not know the specific individuals involved, we are unable to contact former international Tundra SCA supervisors, we do not have the staff resources, and we do not have sufficient knowledge of the organisational structure and operations of Tundra SCA.

The requirements set out by the United States for SIV and P2 visas are detailed are require high levels of accuracy. Most of the inquiries we have received so far are also incomplete, most lack critical information such as dates and locations that would assist us verify them, some people have contacted us presenting documents that appear to have been been falsified, or made false or exaggerated claims about the nature of their employment with Tundra SCA.

I have a document with Tundra Strategies written on it. What does this mean?

Some Tundra SCA projects where delivered in association with another company – Tundra Strategies. This company and its owner(s) are no longer associated to the Tundra Group brand either.

We have been informed by the director of Tundra Strategies that it had no Afghan employees at any time, only Tundra SCA ever had Afghan employees.