Washington, DC – When Ruqia Balkhi arrived in the United States in September 2023, she was greeted by a resettlement agency funded by the federal government which helped her launch a new life.
Balkhi, a 55 -year -old ingenious, was one of the thousands of Afghans who worked alongside the American army during her intervention two decades in his country of origin.
But after the fall of the government supported by the United States in 2021, it became dangerous for it to stay in Afghanistan under the direction of the Taliban.
She therefore left for the United States. During his first 90 days in the country, Balkhi received temporary housing, language courses, basic goods, mental health support and advice on the registration of his 15 -year -old son in a local school in Virginia.
However, when her husband, Mohammed Aref Mangal, arrived in the same visa program in January, these services had been suddenly interrupted. President Donald Trump had just been inaugurated and the United States had tightened restrictions on federal funding and immigration.
“It was completely opposed to my husband,” said Balkhi about the circumstances he had to face.
The defenders say that the story of his family illustrates how Trump’s great decrees could have repercussions even for the areas of bipartisan support.
Veteran organizations have largely supported efforts to safely put Afghan citizens in the United States, especially if they worked with American forces or the United States government.
But within the first days of Trump’s second term, the government interrupted the Admission Program for American Refugees (USRAP), leaving certain Afghan candidates already approved abroad.
Another decree interrupted foreign aid. This, in turn, caused interruptions of the Special Immigrant Visa Program (SIV) for the Afghans who worked with the American army, like Balkhi and her husband.
Balkhi explained that her husband was luckier than most, since he had a family already established in the United States. But she expressed anxiety for those who enter the country without the same support system she has received.
“Without the help of the resettlement agency, I do not think we could have survived,” she told Al Jazeera in Dari, speaking through a translator provided by the Lutheran social services of the national capital region.
Some criticisms consider the problem as a test of the duration of Trump’s rigorous policies, when their full impact becomes clear.
“My request from the new government is that they do not forget their commitments to the Afghan allies and Afghan immigrants,” said Balkhi.
A “error” in the long term?
Trump’s campaign promises did not hide his desire to revise the American immigration system, to repel what he decreed as a migrant “invasion”.
But his criticism of the chaotic withdrawal of the United States of Afghanistan in 2021 had aroused hope among those who plead for services to the Afghans involved in the American army.
“President Trump campaigned on a lot of things related to Afghanistan, in particular how bad the withdrawal was,” said Shawn Vandiver, the founder of #Afghanevac, an organization that supports Afghan resettlement.
“So I don’t think he would do it and not try to help our allies. I just hope it’s a mistake.
In his latest re -election offer, Trump has repeatedly expressed his sympathy for those who were taken in the withdrawal of the troops from August 2021, during which a suicide bombardment cost the life of 13 American soldiers and 170 Afghans.
Trump also castigated former American president Joe Biden for supervised the incident, whom he called “Calamity of Afghanistan”. The day before its inauguration, on January 19, Trump visibly visited the tomb of three soldiers who died during the withdrawal effort.
Vandiver said Trump’s actions from the front will be critical. If his administration changes the course on Afghan resettlement, Vandiver considers it a sign full of hope.
“But if they don’t change anything, well, then you can be left to conclude that they may mean doing it.”
Although Trump’s orders have not directly ceased to treat under SIV, they hampered a pipeline for those who seek aid within the framework of the program, which requires federal funding to operate.
Earlier this month, 10 national organizations based on federal support to provide “reception and placement services” have received an order to stop the work immediately – and will cause no additional cost.
The freeze of the State Department on Foreign Aid has also emptied services for those waiting abroad in places such as Qatar and Albania, including medical care, food and legal support, explained Vandiver.
Most importantly, Trump’s orders have reduced the financing of relocation flights managed by the International Organization for Migration (OIM). Most of the SIV beneficiaries were based on this transport reached the United States.
“The cessation of these services is not only a drawback,” said Vandiver, pointing to delicate life situations of many Afghans who seek security. “This could be a death sentence for some of the most vulnerable evacuates.”
Refugee suspension
The SIV program is not the only one to hinder Trump’s new orders.
Reinstalling refugees has also stopped. Under the previous American administration, Afghans faced with the persecution of the Taliban could request a relocation in special refugee categories.
Category P1 was reserved for Afghans referred by the United States Embassy, while P2 was available for those working with the US military, non-profit programs or organizations affiliated to the United States based in the United States . A third category also allowed family unification, for those who already have parents in the United States.
These routes were all closed in the wider suspension of the American refugee program.
Kim Staffieri, executive director of the association of Wartime Allies, said that people looking for refuge through these programs should receive the same urgent attention as SIV beneficiaries.
“There are many people who have helped us, who worked for the same goals there who are very in danger, but they are simply not eligible for SIV because it has so close requirements,” said Staffieri .
She added that she expected that Trump’s administration had given more consideration to Afghan refugees, given the bipartisan support for them.
“We expected challenges. To which we did not expect, these are these large features at the end of the break and the suspension of the necessary programs, “she told Al Jazeera.
“It seems that they had no knowledge, or they did not take the time to really think that the downstream effects would be in their entirety.”
Veteran support
Surveys have shown large support for the resettlement of Afghans who supported US forces during the war in Afghanistan.
In September 2021, for example, an NPR survey and the IPSOS research office suggested that two thirds of American respondents supported offshoring, far exceeding the support for other groups looking for refuge.
This high level of approval continued in the years that followed. A October 2023 survey of the with Honor Advocacy Group revealed that 80% of respondents reported continuous support for Afghan resettlement.
US military veterans were at the forefront of the resettlement effort. This demographic group, although diversified, generally conservative. About 61% supported Trump in the 2024 elections, according to the Pew Research Center.
Andrew Sullivan, the head of the plea and the government affairs of the person who left behind, a defense group of the SIV, described support as “a question of national honor and national security”.
“It is certainly a problem of veterans. And so it was a bipartite problem, “said Sullivan.
A veteran of the Afghanistan War himself, Sullivan worked in close collaboration alongside an Afghan interpreter while he was an infantry officer of the army. This interpreter – that Sullivan only identified by a first name, Ahmadi – has since moved to the United States through the SIV program.
Sullivan said he was optimistic Trump would eventually create “discoveries” for Afghans, stressing the large number of veterans of the Afghan conflict in the administration of the Republican.
One of these veterans, the former member of the Congress Mike Waltz, has since become a national security advisor to Trump’s White House. Waltz previously put pressure on former President Biden to “bring our Afghan allies home to the house”.
Sullivan explained that he had engaged several times with Waltz on the issue, and he left feeling full of hope.
“He understands this personal and visceral level, how much these people mean [veterans]”Said Sullivan. “So I know he understands.”
‘A howling halt’
The other defenders, however, have less hope. James Powers, a basic Ohio organizer who focuses on the matters of veterans, stressed the role of immigration to the Hard Stephen Miller in the new administration.
Miller had served in Trump’s first administration when the treatment of the SIV slowed down in slowing down.
“It is logical that [the programme] would arrive at a screaming stop as soon as he returned to power to influence the current president, “said Powers.
Defenders also feared that years of work to develop the current system are in danger.
Last year, Congress adopted a law with bipartite support which created a special office to coordinate and rationalize SIV relocations.
Over the past four years, Biden administration has also expanded the treatment of SIVs and other categories of Afghan refugees. The government of Biden published 33,341 SIV during the financial year 2024, on the triple of the number published in 2022, the first full exercise according to the withdrawal.
Admissions to Afghan refugees also went from 1,618 during the year 2022 to 14,708 in 2024.
All in all, more than 200,000 Afghans have been moved to the United States since the withdrawal, including tens of thousands of flights on evacuation flights overnight.
“They have to do a better job,” said Powers about the Trump administration. “There are fair experts on both sides of the aisle, on all ideological spectra, which will tell them that there are better ways.”
