Thousands of once protected Afghan refugees in the United States face deportation

The chaotic US military pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021 became a hot campaign issue in the 2024 presidential election and continues to echo today. President Donald Trump, who set the withdrawal in motion during his first term in office, repeatedly criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for leaving behind billions of dollars of military equipment. Also left behind were tens of thousands of Afghans, and their family members, who faced retribution for assisting US forces in the fight against the Taliban. American authorities tasked with assisting Afghans who aided the American wartime effort have been criticized for working too slowly, and Congress has proposed but failed to pass legislation that would provide a path to permanent residency for those Afghan refugees who have been resettled in the United States. At the beginning of 2025, approximately 110,000 Afghans in Afghanistan and 90,000 others in third countries, many of whom had already undergone a lengthy and stringent vetting process for admission, were waiting for visas or resettlement.

Administration revokes protected status

One of Trump’s first actions on taking office in January 2025 was to issue an executive order suspending the Afghan resettlement program and leaving those eligible in legal limbo. Approximately 180,000 Afghans had been admitted to the United States after August 2021; some were given special immigration visas (SIVs) that provided a path to permanent residency, while others were given humanitarian parole and granted temporary protected status (TPS) that allowed them to stay and to work in the US. On April 11, the US Department of Homeland Security announced its decision to end TPS for more than 9,000 Afghans because Afghanistan “no longer continues to meet the statutory requirement for TPS.” Those targeted were given the option to self-deport before May 20.

Trump administration officials claim that Afghans and refugees from several other countries have misused the TPS program — designed to temporarily protect people from conflicts and natural disasters — to remain in the United States indefinitely. They rest their case against Afghan refugees on the assumption that conditions in Afghanistan have improved sufficiently that they can safely return, although advocates for Afghan refugees insist they continue to have reason to fear retribution for their wartime involvement with Americans and other foreigners.

The Taliban continues to label anyone associated with the Americans and their allied military forces as collaborators, according to individuals who served the previous US-backed Ashraf Ghani government and requested anonymity in discussions with the author. Although the Taliban regime’s policies can be capricious and unevenly enforced, many Afghans who once worked as interpreters and other aides for the US military or were employed by American-funded non-governmental organizations and foreign media and have remained in Afghanistan live in fear of being pursued and persecuted and remain in hiding. This is aside from the conditions awaiting refugee women and girls in the way of education, employment, and travel restrictions should they be forced to return to Afghanistan, and the broader humanitarian situation, which the UN calls “severe,” with half the country in urgent need of assistance.

Security officials claim refugees present threat

From the Trump administration's perspective, the deportation of Afghans who arrived after the US military withdrawal is a national security imperative. According to 2022 reports by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, more than 79,000 Afghan evacuees were admitted to the US between July 2021 and January 2022 through Operation Allies Refuge (OAR) and Operation Allies Welcome (OAW). The IG reports contend that the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) did not fully utilize Department of Defense tactical data when vetting Afghan evacuees, resulting in the possibility that individuals may have entered the US who might have otherwise been deemed inadmissible. Concerns over lapses in the vetting of Afghan evacuees resurfaced during the recent Senate Intelligence Committee hearing for Joe Kent, the Trump-nominated candidate to lead the NCTC. During the session, Kent accused the Biden administration of admitting thousands of Afghans without proper screening, claiming that the NCTC has since identified more than 1,400 individuals with suspected links to Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), a regional offshoot of the main Islamic State (ISIS) organization, and other terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, Trump’s national security team has attempted, without much evidence, to draw a direct link between illegal immigration and domestic terrorism. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz claimed in a January interview that terrorist groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Hamas had infiltrated the United States. Although his remarks followed a terrorist attack in New Orleans committed by a US-born veteran allegedly influenced by ISIS, Waltz asserted the US should respond by first securing the borders and then “begin kicking out the people we can find, arresting others, and starting to clean this mess up.” The US intelligence community’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment identified ISKP as a significant terrorist threat facing the United States and its allies and warned that the group has the intent and capacity to stage attacks well beyond its base in Afghanistan. The report mentions one Afghan national, refugee status unmentioned, who was arrested in the US for planning a terrorist attack.

Afghan refugees caught between conflicting policy goals?

During a visit to Greenland in March, Vice President JD Vance called the Taliban “one of the worst terrorist organizations in the world.” He also condemned the Biden administration for relinquishing billions of dollars in US military equipment during the withdrawal from Afghanistan and allowing some of it to fall into the hands of ISKP and other terrorist groups, presumably supporting the argument that Afghanistan is not safe. Notably, however, the Trump administration has not explicitly designated the Taliban regime as a terrorist entity.

It is possible to see the Trump administration’s decision to deport Afghans as linked to recent limited engagements with the Kabul government, including the negotiated release of several US hostages. As the Biden administration had done, Trump continues to press the Taliban for intelligence cooperation against several terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan, and Trump officials have recently suggested the Taliban should collect and return the left-behind weapons. Because some cooperation with the Kabul government may be required to repatriate the Afghan refugees, the Taliban may see a deal as a way to get the Trump administration to take steps toward granting political recognition and consider providing economic and development aid. It can also be suggested that the US Afghan refugee policy is aligned with developments in Pakistan in that it reinforces the notion that the refugee status of Afghans is temporary. Citing security reasons, Pakistan has ended temporary protections and forced the departure of 900,000 undocumented Afghans since November 2023, including more than 80,000 since April 1, many of whom have resided in Pakistan for decades. The Taliban has criticized the Pakistan government’s refugee policy not for the expulsion of Afghans but for not proceeding more gradually. 

Whatever the motives behind the decision to remove heretofore protected Afghan refugees, their expulsion is a tragedy for a people who have suffered so much over the last 40 years. They will be faced with a return to a country ill-prepared to receive them and suspicious of their presence. For many of them it also portends repression and hardship. The United States will once again have broken faith with the Afghan people.

 

Marvin G. Weinbaum is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the US Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1999 to 2003.

Naade Ali is currently serving as a Research Assistant to Dr. Weinbaum at MEI. He has more than five years of involvement working with international organizations and think tanks as a political researcher, policy advisor, peace strategist, and human rights practitioner with experience in human and national security, democratization, conflict resolution, and political culture. Prior to joining MEI, Ali worked with Media Foundation 360, a think tank dedicated to strengthening democratic practices in Pakistan.

Photo by Marcus Yam/LA Times via Getty Images