Nasir, legal adviser to the Afghan Air Force during the war, helped approve airstrikes against Taliban fighters. He is still in Afghanistan, where he has lived in hiding since the Taliban takeover in 2021 while awaiting approval for resettlement in the United States.
He had passed background checks and only needed a medical exam to complete the process, he said. But last week, he and tens of thousands of other Afghans found their way to the United States blocked by an executive action signed by President Trump.
The order suspended a resettlement program that brings thousands of legal refugees to the country each year. Among the many now in limbo are Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort and are seeking a fresh start and a sense of security in the United States.
Nasir, a former lieutenant colonel who asked that his full name not be used, wrote in a text message that Mr. Trump had “not only ignored the interests of the Afghans in this decision, but also failed to consider the interests of the United States. “
“How can the world and American allies rely on the American government?” He added.
The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, in place since 1980, allows legal immigration for approved individuals who have fled their home countries due to persecution, war, or other threats. When suspending the program, Mr. Trump said it would continue to burden communities that were not equipped to handle refugees.
Mr. Trump order, titled “Realignment of the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” takes effect Monday. It says the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security can admit refugees on a case-by-case basis, but only if they determine it is “in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or the welfare of the United States.”
The order does not specify when the suspension will end, saying it will continue “until further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”
At least 40,000 Afghans were pursuing resettlement in the United States before the order was issued Monday and refugee flights were halted the next day, according to #Afghanevac, a coalition of 250 groups working to help Afghans immigrate.
The suspension is particularly devastating for the 10,000 to 15,000 Afghans who #AfghaneVac said had been fully vetted and were preparing for flights. It’s also a blow to about 200 active-duty U.S. military personnel who are trying to get their families out of Afghanistan.
A U.S. Army paratrooper at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, who asked to be identified by his code name, Mojo, said he spent the last year helping his sister and her husband apply for a refugee status to enter the United States from Afghanistan.
Mojo, 26, was an interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He said he joined the U.S. military two years ago after leaving Afghanistan in 2021 under a program that grants visas to Afghans who have directly served the U.S. military or government.
His sister and brother-in-law, both doctors, are in hiding, fearing reprisals from the Taliban because of Mojo’s military service, he said. They recently completed the lengthy refugee vetting process and were approved to resettle in the United States, he said. All that remained was to arrange a flight out of Afghanistan.
“We were so close to getting them to safety — and suddenly everything was shut down,” Mojo said by phone from Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg, where he serves with the 82nd Airborne Division.
When her sister heard the news, Mojo said, “She started crying – and I started crying with her.”
Shawn Vandiver, president of #Afghanevac, called the executive order a betrayal of Afghans who supported the U.S. government or military.
“Everyone is frozen in place — it’s heartbreaking,” he said in a telephone interview.
Among those pushed into uncertainty are former members of Afghanistan’s military and security forces, as well as judges and lawyers involved in the prosecution of Taliban members. Some judges and lawyers are women, who have been persecuted by the Taliban.
Mr. Vandiver said suspending the resettlement program did not address the problem of illegal entry by migrants at the southern U.S. border – a goal of Mr. Trump’s campaign. Individuals in the program cannot apply on their own, but must be referred by U.S. government agencies or designated non-governmental partners.
“Failing to protect our Afghan allies sends a dangerous message to the world: that U.S. commitments are conditional and temporary,” Vandiver said.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans who fled after the Taliban takeover have landed in neighboring Pakistan. Many live in the capital, Islamabad, where they have pursued resettlement in the United States and other Western countries through embassies and refugee agencies.
Many fear being deported to Afghanistan now that their path to the United States has been cut off. Pakistan has already expelled hundreds of thousands of Afghans due to rising tensions with the Taliban.
“For three years, we endured relentless harassment from Pakistani authorities,” said Ihsan Ullah Ahmedzai, a journalist who worked with U.S.-funded media in Kabul, the Afghan capital, before fleeing to Islamabad in 2021 “But we remained hopeful that we would soon leave for the United States,” he added.
This optimism is now gone. “Trump’s order sounded like a bomb,” Mr. Ahmedzai said. “It shattered our hopes and left us vulnerable to danger once again.”
Noor Habiba, who worked with a U.S.-funded women’s rights group in Kabul before fleeing with her husband and two daughters to Islamabad, said she was hoping until now to make it to the United States in February or March.
“We cannot return to Afghanistan,” Ms. Habiba said. “There is nothing left for women to live under the rule of the Taliban.”
Immigrant advocates worry that Afghans already in the United States could also be in danger. Migrants allowed into the country under Biden administration programs could be expelled quickly with powers Mr. Trump is giving to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to an internal memo obtained by the New York Times.
After the US military withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Biden administration began a program allowing 76,000 evacuated Afghans to enter the United States for humanitarian reasons, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
By 2023, more than 90,000 Afghans had settled in the United States, according to Mustafa Babakan Emerson Collective Fellow who is a resettlement expert.
The number of refugees from Afghanistan and other countries admitted into the U.S. resettlement program has fluctuated wildly under Democratic and Republican administrations.
Under President Barack Obama, a total of 85,000 refugees were admitted in 2016. In 2020, the final year of Mr. Trump’s first term, the number reached a low of 11,000. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. revived the program, admitting 100,000 refugees last year, the most in three decades.
The program requires applicants to undergo a screening process This includes FBI and other agency background checks, biometric screenings, medical exams, interviews and multiple security advisories.
Zahra, a U.S. Army sergeant, said five immediate family members hiding in Afghanistan had made it through that process when the executive order froze them in place.
She said she came to the United States from Afghanistan on a college scholarship in 2016. She enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2021, she said.
“My family is very stressed,” Zahra, 30, who asked that her full name not be published, said in a text message. “We held on to the little hope we had been given.”
She added: “This pause on evacuation flights takes that little bit of hope and leaves them with a future full of uncertainty.”
Mojo, the US army paratrooper, said he feared Mr Trump would block the resettlement of other refugees but had believed he would exempt Afghan allies because of their support for the US mission.
“I still have hope” for an exemption, he said. “I mean, he’s my commander in chief.”
