Trump’s suspension of refugee admissions puts Afghans at risk, lawyer says

An executive order signed by President Trump on Monday suspending the admission of refugees to the United States puts thousands of Afghan nationals who helped the American mission during the war at risk, the president of a resettlement group said. based in California.

The order will affect not only dozens of Afghans who are now hidden from repressive Taliban rule, but also family members of active-duty U.S. troops, said Shawn VanDiver, the president of AfghanEvac, a coalition of more than 250 organizations that help to resettle. Afghans who worked with the Americans before the withdrawal of the United States in 2021.

The order is “another broken promise” by the United States, Mr. VanDiver said by email. “It risks abandoning thousands of Afghan war allies who have stood by US service members during two decades of conflict,” he added.

Mr. Trump’s order, titled “Realigning the United States Refugee Admission Program“, is scheduled to take effect next Monday. He did not specify when the suspension would end, saying it would continue “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

Refugee programs have historically been a point of pride in the United States, reflecting its ambition to be seen as a leader in human rights. The president usually makes an annual determination of how many refugees to let into the country each year.

After the chaotic withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan as the Taliban seized power, the Biden administration launched Operation Allies Welcome, allowing 76,000 Afghan evacuees to enter the United States for humanitarian reasons, according to the Washington base. Migration Policy Institute.

From 2023, more than 90,000 Afghans had settled in the United States, according to statistics cited by Mustafa Babak, an Emerson Collective partner who is an expert in advocacy and resettlement. But the refugee agencies of the United States were prepared for the admission program to be gutted by Mr. Trump won the November election.

During his first term as president, Mr. Trump signed an executive order barring people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the country. He slashed the annual US refugee cap; in 2020, the last full year of his mandate, the United States admitted a record low number of refugees, about 11,000. The move has left thousands of refugees stranded in camps in Kenya, Tanzania and Jordan.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. he resurrected the program after becoming president in 2021. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2024, about 100,000 refugees came to the United States, the most in nearly three decades, records show.

After Mr. Trump declared his candidacy for the 2024 election, a conservative policy plan called Project 2025 suggested that he would cite the record number of migrant crossings at the southern border during the Biden administration as and a justification for stopping refugee resettlement.

The suspension of refugee admissions was one of a storm of executive orders signed by Mr. Trump in the hours of his swearing in on Monday. The other orders would crack down on illegal immigration and end the US program that allowed migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua to enter the US for up to two years if they had a financial sponsor and passed the security checks.

The refugee order says: “Over the past four years, the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, including through the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Cities and small towns from Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Ohio, to Whitewater, Wisconsin, have seen significant influxes of migrants.Even major urban centers such as New York City, Chicago, and Denver have sought federal help to manage the burden of i new arrivals”.

But Mr. VanDiver said the polls have shown that strong support among the American public for the continued relocation and resettlement of Afghan allies.

He noted that people verified under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program entered the country “only after receiving a government or U.S. non-profit referral and after undergoing an extensive service check, checks background, medical screening and rigorous security check”.

Now, he said, Mr. Trump’s executive action will plunge thousands of Afghan refugees into limbo by freezing all their cases and preventing Afghans from boarding flights to the United States. He said another executive order from Mr. Trump – on the protection of the country from “foreign terrorists and other threats to national security and public safety” – had provisions that could also affect Afghan nationals seeking refuge in the United States.

Mr. VanDiver said his coalition, which is working to secure special visas for Afghans who have assisted the US mission, had sent a letter signed by more than 700 people, including veterans and civilians who have worked in Afghanistan , “urging the administration to exempt Afghan allies from this pause.”

Among those who could be shut down are “family members of active-duty DoD service members and partner forces who have trained, fought and died alongside American troops,” Mr. VanDiver said, in reference to the Department of Defense.

“Failure to protect our Afghan allies sends a dangerous message to the world: that US commitments are conditional and temporary,” he said. “This decision undermines global confidence in our leadership and jeopardizes future alliances.”