Thousands of Afghans face expulsion from US as Trump removes protections

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Source: The Guardian

Sat 21 Jun 2025 08.00 EDT
Last modified on Sat 21 Jun 2025 08.01 EDT


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.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/21/afghanistan-trump-deportation-threat