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'We've lost hope': Afghans who helped U.S. forces stranded under Trump's refugee ban

Advocates for the refugees who face retribution from the Taliban argue the U.S. government owes them safe haven.

Afghan refugees in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday hold placards in response to President Trump's pause of the U.S. refugee program. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
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Jan. 28, 2025, 6:57 p.m.

For several years, Khalil was a legal adviser for the Afghan Air Force, working alongside U.S. pilots to approve airstrikes targeting the Taliban and the Islamic State. But when Kabul fell under Taliban control in the summer of 2021, his life was thrown into disarray.

Since then, the 32-year-old Afghan frequently has had to relocate his wife and young son to avoid the Taliban’s reprisals, he told National Journal. His 12-year-old son hasn’t attended school for the past three years. After they fled, Taliban officials moved into the family’s home.

Despite the hardship, Khalil tried to keep his family’s spirits high by promising they would eventually make it to safety in the United States. The family had been through the lengthy vetting process to enter the U.S. as refugees, and they expected to leave Afghanistan within the next several months. Then Donald Trump reentered the White House and suspended all refugee admissions, dashing the family’s hopes of escape.

“We’ve been almost four years living in [fear], hiding, without a salary, without a job, without access to health care services and proper food and clothing,” Khalil told National Journal. “That wasn’t easy for us, but at least we had hope that we would get to safety and a peaceful location. Now, we’ve lost hope. Hope was the only thing we had in the past four years.”

Khalil is not his real name. National Journal is not revealing his identity due to concerns for the safety of him and his family.

Khalil says safety is a frequent concern for himself and his family. They’ve had to live on the run and survive on the charity of friends.

“I brought death to the Taliban forces alongside the American troops in Afghanistan. At the time when our government was in power, I couldn’t live outside the military base due to security threats,” he added. “Now, you can imagine the condition I am in.”

Khalil is just one of between 100,000 to 250,000 Afghans, including refugee or Special Immigrant Visa applicants, who have seen their hopes of relocating to the United States dashed due to the Trump administration’s decision to close the country to refugees. Experts estimate that up to 15,000 of those Afghans had already been vetted for entry.

Trump was reelected on a vociferously anti-immigrant platform. In the first days after taking office, he issued executive orders suspending the U.S. refugee-admissions program for at least 90 days. The new administration also canceled the flights of thousands of refugees like Khalil who had received approval to relocate to the U.S.

The Homeland Security Department told refugee officers to stop processing new cases, and the Border Patrol stopped accepting asylum cases at the southern border. The Biden-era CPB-One app, which allowed migrants to apply for appointments to have their asylum cases heard, was promptly switched off. The new administration also cut off funding for refugees already in the country, ending reception and resettlement services for Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders and others.

All legal avenues to enter the U.S. and apply for asylum appear to have ended for the time being and, with them, the hopes of people who have worked with the U.S. military in conflict zones such as Afghanistan.

Hasan, a 26-year-old Afghan now based in the United States, says that most of the men in his family worked for the U.S. government. He was a combat interpreter for the Army Special Forces in Afghanistan, and his father also worked as a U.S. military contractor. After the fall of Kabul in 2021, he arrived in the U.S. on humanitarian parole. He eventually obtained a Special Immigrant Visa and is now a U.S. citizen.

Although he’s relieved to be in the United States, he says Trump’s executive orders have impacted his family back home in Afghanistan. Hasan was working to relocate his sister, a doctor who can no longer work under Taliban rule, to the United States. “They’re being hunted by the Taliban,” he told National Journal. “She can’t practice medicine. I told her to just stop working and hide in a safe place until we find a solution.”

Hasan is also not his real name. As with Khalil, National Journal is not revealing his identity due to concerns for his and his family’s safety.

Hasan says the Trump administration’s decision to prevent people including his sister from entering the country has left him depressed, especially when he thinks about everything he and his family have sacrificed for the U.S. government. His sister had already been vetted and approved to enter the United States. He says he called her as soon as he heard the news about Trump’s refugee-admissions ban.

“The moment I started talking to her, she started crying, and it made me emotional too,” he told National Journal. “We’re all human beings. We sometimes have feelings and emotions. I told her I would do whatever I could to bring her to safety. There’s no way I can give up on this and let it go. It’s been a mental struggle for me.”

Some advocates noted that there was already a long backlog of Afghans who worked with the U.S. government waiting to come to the U.S. That’s because the first Trump administration had effectively shut down the refugee-admissions program and the Biden administration had to rebuild it from scratch.

Many Afghan allies were left waiting for long periods after the fall of Kabul just to begin the application process to relocate to the U.S. Some went to neighboring Pakistan to wait out the process, only to be later expelled back into Afghanistan by the Pakistani government. Advocates for the Afghans who have been left behind argue that the U.S. government owes them safe haven.

“Do what you will do, but make an exception for Afghans. These people stood beside us. They are in great danger,” said Shawn VanDiver, founder of the organization AfghanEvac. “There’s no reason why we couldn’t just help them.”

Some advocates for refugees noted that people awaiting travel to the U.S. could have their medical exams or security clearances expire before they make it to safety. Many may be trapped or stranded in unsafe environments.

“This abrupt halt to refugee admissions is devastating for families who have already endured unimaginable persecution and waited years for the chance to rebuild their lives in safety,” said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, an organization that supports migrants. “Refugees go through one of the most rigorous vetting processes in the world, and it’s heartbreaking to see their dreams of safety derailed just days before, or in some cases, just hours before they were set to begin their new lives here.”

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