Afghan allies ask for long-awaited protection

WASHINGTON—Since the United States pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021 and the country fell to the Taliban, Mark has worried about his family members back home. Born in Afghanistan but now serving in the U.S. Army Reserve, Mark worked with U.S. military service members in Afghanistan before he moved to the United States.

Mark’s connection with the U.S. military puts a target on his family members still living under Taliban’s terrorist rule in Afghanistan. (WORLD agreed to refer to Mark by a pseudonym to protect his family members’ safety.)

Mark said his family applied to enter the United States through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, or USRAP. “They went through the screening process … and they were about to make their departure to the U.S.,” he said.

But last month, President Donald Trump decided to limit refugee admissions to the United States for fiscal year 2026 to only 7,500 people, mostly white Afrikaners from South Africa. Upon hearing about the decision, Mark said he was disappointed and feared his family might not be coming to the United States at all during Trump’s time in office.

“They still live in Afghanistan,” Mark told WORLD last week. “They sold out all their belongings, and they were ready to come, but they couldn’t make it.”

Ten months after Trump took office, former Afghan allies worry the Taliban government will target their family members due to their connections with the United States. Many Afghan allies—some of whom have joined the U.S. military, and some of whom voted for Trump—are urging federal officials to bring their family members to the United States before the Taliban gets to them. Meanwhile, Trump’s White House says it’s trying to clean up an immigration system that was overloaded during the Biden administration.

On Jan. 20, Trump—who’d taken the oath of office only hours before—signed an executive order putting the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on pause.

“This order suspends the USRAP until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States,” the order said. The United States, under the Biden administration, had been overrun with far more migrants and refugees than it could reasonably take on, the document argued.

“It is the policy of the United States to ensure that public safety and national security are paramount considerations … and to admit only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate into the United States and to ensure that the United States preserves taxpayer resources for its citizens,” the order stated.

Whatever the order’s motivations and intentions, it left the families of American service members—and other U.S. allies—in the lurch.

“These are people’s lives that are on the line,” said Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, an organization seeking to help Afghan allies and refugees. “And people in Washington, D.C., enjoying a cocktail while the families of our service members are being hunted down by the Taliban? That’s just unacceptable.”

He said that his organization and several Afghan veterans have tried to meet with the administration since Trump took office in January, plying agencies with letters and requests. But according to VanDiver, the administration hasn’t responded.

“We’re going around the Hill talking to lawmakers because these folks have been trying to get in touch with the administration for 10 months,” VanDiver said. “They had an approved [Department of Defense] program within the safest and most secure legal immigration pathway in our country’s history.”

VanDiver argued that the Trump administration could take advantage of an easy solution to address a “Biden administration screw-up.” Since many of the Afghan family members are already living at a State Department–run facility in Qatar, VanDiver said that Trump could approve an exemption bringing those family members—who he said are already vetted for safety and approved for travel—to the United States.

“These folks are fighting for our country. They’re wearing the cloth of our nation,” VanDiver said. “And we can’t get [their families] here, even though they were approved for travel? That’s crazy. And all the president has to do is say, ‘OK.’ That’s all he’s got to do.”

Phillip, another Afghan national serving in the U.S. military, explained that Afghanistan is not safe for his family. (WORLD has given him a pseudonym as well.) After receiving threats due to his years of work for the U.S. government, he came to the United States through the special immigrant visa (SIV) program in 2014. “Immediately, in order to give back, which the U.S. has given me so much … I enlisted in the military,” Phillip said.

After joining the U.S. military in 2015, Phillip completed deployments in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. But since the Taliban takeover, his brother remains in Afghanistan, keeping a low profile and communicating with few people. “In the hope that he could be relocated to safety at any moment—and that’s what he has been living off for … over four years now,” Phillip said.

Phillip was working with the Department of Defense to bring his brother into the United States at the time of Trump’s inauguration. His brother completed the initial screening process with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and was in the process of being medically screened when Trump took office and the USRAP program ground to a halt. Since then, his brother has been in limbo, Phillip said.

“As of right now, my brother is actually in [hiding] trying to stay indoors in order to somehow mitigate the threats that is facing him,” Phillip said. “But anytime—any moment—I could, I may not hear from him. … He could get prosecuted or killed by the Taliban.”

The lawmakers who met with them seemed genuinely interested in finding a way to help them with their plight, Phillip said.

“We’ll continue to raise our voice, raise our concern until it gets to the right people of the White House, until they make a decisive decision to make this thing happen,” he added.

WORLD asked the White House if executive branch officials planned to bring the family members of U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan to the United States.

“The Trump administration has long expressed its intention to end Biden’s abuse of the refugee program,” the White House responded in an email on Wednesday. “No refugees will be admitted in FY26 until the appropriate consultations with Congress are held, which are being delayed because certain members of Congress insisted on shutting down the government.”

Mark, who said he voted for Trump, estimated that roughly 2,000 family members of U.S. military are still waiting in Afghanistan. He argued that, even if Trump keeps the 7,500-cap for refugee admissions in 2026, he could still bring in Mark’s family members—and the family members of other military personnel like him.

“I know he always [speaks] highly of military, and he takes care of service members,” Mark said. “I’m sure if he wants to do something, he can.”

—with additional reporting from Harrison Watters.