Thousands of Afghans face expulsion from US as Trump removes protections

Thousands of Afghans who fled to the US as the Taliban grabbed power again in Afghanistan are in mortal dread of being deported back to danger in the coming weeks amid the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown.

Many, including some who assisted US forces in Afghanistan before the botched withdrawal by the military in 2021, are contending with threats to their legal status in the US on several fronts.

Donald Trump revoked safeguards from deportation for those in the US covered under temporary protected status (TPS), by taking Afghanistan off the list of eligible countries then, not long after, put Afghanistan on the list of countries affected by the revamped travel ban.

Afghans are also affected by Trump’s refugee ban and that all comes amid almost daily news of stepped-up arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) affecting undocumented immigrants and also many with a legal status, from Central and South America, parts of Africa and Asia and other regions, caught in the dragnet and sending terror rippling through other communities.

Shir Agha Safi, the executive director of Afghan Partners in Des Moines, a non-profit in Iowa where there are 500 families who evacuated from Afghanistan to escape the re-empowered Taliban, said members of his community are “traumatized because they have seen what happened to Venezuelan immigrants in other states”.

The loss of TPS for Afghans, which also provides employment authorization, goes into effect on 14 July.

With the government’s announcement, Safi said some in his community are too afraid to speak openly but had told him “they would choose suicide over being tortured and killed by the Taliban”.

Asked to elaborate, he said: “They have said this because the Taliban is still there and if you send an Afghan back to Afghanistan that would mean a death penalty.”

The US government initially granted Afghans in the US TPS in 2022, because the Biden administration agreed that it was too risky for them to return to Afghanistan due to the armed conflict and political turmoil that has forced millions to flee the country. Even before Trump returned to the White House their foothold in US society was uncertain.

Now the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argues that Afghanistan is safe to go back to.

“Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said in a recent statement.

The department cited rising tourism as a factor, with the Federal Register’s item about revoking TPS for Afghans saying “tourism to Afghanistan has increased, as the rates of kidnappings have reduced”. It quotes that from a US Institute of Peace report that assessed conditions three years after the Taliban took back control and does include that sentence – but the majority of the report describes negative conditions in poverty-stricken Afghanistan, where “the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of force, where justice is not administered in courts but meted out through fear and violence”.

The US state department website, meanwhile, puts the country in the highest-risk advice category for US citizens, warning: “Do not travel to Afghanistan due to civil unrest, crime, terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping, and limited health facilities.”

But immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers say Taliban-controlled Afghanistan remains a dangerous country for many, especially minorities, women and those who assisted the foreign war effort, including humanitarian work. Some foreigners living in Afghanistan have been arrested by the Taliban this year and detained for weeks.

California state senator Aisha Wahab, the first Afghan American woman elected to US public office, challenged the Trump administration’s decision.

“Pushing these individuals to Afghanistan again – Afghanistan being a country that lacks basic human rights, basic women’s rights, basic humanitarian support, a legal and justice system – is problematic,” said Wahab, who represents some of the largest Afghan immigrant communities in northern California.

“Afghanistan is a country that is landlocked, that struggles with trade, that more than 50% of their population are not allowed to get an education beyond sixth grade. It’s a fact that it is led by a deeply religious regime that has a lot of problems,” she added.

Hundreds of Afghans have been publicly flogged by the authorities since the Taliban took over in 2021, the Guardian reported last month.

In a bipartisan approach, US Senators Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, and Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, have written jointly to secretary of state Marco Rubio.

“We are writing to express profound concern over the recent decision to terminate temporary protected status (TPS) for over 8,000 Afghan nationals currently residing in the United States. This decision endangers thousands of lives, including Afghans who stood by the United States. This decision represents a historic betrayal of promises made and undermines the values we fought for far more than 20 years in Afghanistan,” the letter reads.

It added that revoking TPS, especially for women and minority groups, “exposes these individuals to the very real threat of persecution, violence and even death under Taliban rule”.

While the US government hasn’t laid out a deportation plan, it has encouraged Afghans who lose their TPS status to leave the country.

However, a DHS official said: “Any Afghan who fears persecution is able to request asylum. All aliens who have had their TPS or parole terminated or are otherwise in the country unlawfully should take advantage of the CBP Home self-deportation process to receive a free one-way plane ticket and $1,000 financial assistance to help them resettle elsewhere.”

Bipartisan efforts to give Afghans permanent legal status in the US previously stalled for three years, with the Biden administration creating temporary avenues for those in limbo.

Many Afghan families in the US still depend on the future of TPS, said Jill Marie Bussey, the director for legal affairs at Global Refuge, an immigrant rights group that has helped thousands of Afghans settle in the US.

“Protection from deportation is the center, but the work authorization associated with the status is the only thing that is allowing them to send money to their loved ones right now and keeping them safe,” said Bussey.

“I have a client, whom I message with almost on a daily basis, who is absolutely distraught, at a very high level of anxiety, because he fears that his spouse and children, including his four-year-old daughter, whom he’s never met in person, will suffer greatly if he loses his work authorization.”

According to government data, since July of 2021, US Citizenship and Immigration Services has received nearly 22,000 asylum applications by Afghan nationals. Nearly 20,000 of them were granted.

But given the immigration court backlog, which totals 3.5 million active cases and an average wait time between five to 636 days, many Afghans still haven’t heard any news on their applications on other status available to them, Bussey added.

“They were promised that green card based on their allyship to our country and then applying for asylum felt like a betrayal, an imperfect fit for them,” said Bussey.

The Guardian requested information on how many Afghans currently protected by TPS have also been granted other legal status, but DHS did not respond.