As Afghans fear deportation, Trump administration doesn’t swerve

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on Monday that she would let a temporary immigration status for Afghans expire, giving recipients 59 days until the United States can deport them. The Temporary Protected Status designation for Afghans is now set to end on July 12.

“Secretary Noem made the decision to terminate TPS for individuals from Afghanistan because the country’s improved security situation and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to WORLD. “Additionally, the termination furthers the national interest and the statutory provision that TPS is in fact designed to be temporary.”

The White House says the administration is trying to correct the Biden administration’s overuse of TPS to circumvent the legal asylum process for immigrants. A coalition of pro-immigration groups says the Trump administration is overcorrecting by ending the legal status of Afghans who face persecution and death from the Taliban because they supported the U.S. military or adopted Western values and practices.

TPS is a form of legal status that the United States may grant to immigrants from countries experiencing armed conflicts, natural disasters, epidemics, or other temporary situations. Immigrants admitted to the United States with TPS may apply for more permanent legal status once here. If the conditions that led to TPS change—if the home country recovers from a disaster, for example—then the government can require TPS recipients to return home.

Daniel Salazar, refugee and protection policy adviser at Global Refuge, told me the administration’s belief that Afghanistan’s socio-economic situation has improved is based on misconstrued evidence. DHS says that Afghanistan’s gross domestic product has increased—and it has, by about 3 percent. But that doesn’t mean the country’s GDP is healthy, he explained.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Afghanistan ranks 209 out of 222 countries in the world with a per capita GDP of about $2,000. And while armed conflict in the country has decreased, that’s only because the opposition forces fighting the Taliban aren’t as strong or organized as they once were, Salazar said.

“Afghanistan remains under the control of the Taliban,” said Shawn VanDiver, president of the nonprofit AfghanEvac. “There are still assassinations, arbitrary arrests, and ongoing human rights abuses, especially against women and ethnic minorities.”

The State Department’s website currently warns Americans: “Do not travel to Afghanistan due to civil unrest, crime, terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping, and limited health facilities.” DHS did not respond when I asked why Secretary Noem believed Afghanistan was safe for immigrants to return to in light of the State Department’s warning.

An estimated 11,700 Afghans have entered the United States legally through TPS since the U.S. military left Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban took over the country, according to the Federal Register. Thousands of others have entered the country through other humanitarian parole programs or with special immigrant visas. All of them underwent initial vetting by the Department of Homeland Security.

“DHS records indicate that there are Afghan nationals who are TPS recipients who have been the subject of administrative investigations for fraud, public safety, and national security,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to WORLD. But AfghanEvac’s VanDiver said that’s not a widespread issue among TPS recipients. In every population, you’re going to have some people who cause problems, he said.

For Afghan Christians, returning home would be especially dangerous. WORLD spoke to one Christian from Afghanistan who recalled being imprisoned and tortured at the hands of Taliban authorities shortly after the terrorist group took over the country in 2021. Nashinas, a 25-year-old man who used a pseudonym to protect his family members in Afghanistan, explained that the Taliban arrested him after they found out he was a Christian.

He spent the next several months in prison, during which guards beat him, subjected him to electric shock sessions, drenched him in cold water while he was locked in a cage, and left him in cages overnight in the freezing cold. He eventually managed to flee Afghanistan and now lives in the United States. Returning to Afghanistan would mean death, he told me.

Nashinas received humanitarian parole, not TPS. He and other parolees received a notice last month saying they needed to self-deport because their humanitarian parole was being revoked. He and other Afghan Christians have applied for asylum. That might protect them, but it might not.

American religious groups for weeks have been calling on the Trump administration to protect hundreds of Afghan Christians from deportation. The Christians in question have followed all the laws regarding their immigration status, advocates say. Earlier this month, World Relief shared a letter signed by more than a dozen faith leaders urging the administration to protect Afghan Christians.

The White House told me on Tuesday that it encouraged Afghan Christians to apply for asylum, and fear of religious persecution was a valid reason for the courts to grant asylum. Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security responded when I asked if officials could assure the public that Afghan Christians would not be deported while their asylum applications were pending approval.

Afghans on TPS should have a strong case for asylum, VanDiver said. “It's not safe to go to Afghanistan,” he explained. “If they get sent back, they're dead.”

VanDiver also noted that there is a possibility a federal court could order DHS to halt its TPS terminations amid ongoing legal challenges. He said the decision to end TPS doesn’t further the national interest as DHS claims.

“What the administration has done is betray people who risked their lives for America, built lives here, and believed in our promises,” he said. “This policy change won’t make us safer—it will tear families apart, destabilize lives, and shred what’s left of our moral credibility.”

Nashinas said he wants nothing more than a chance to live in freedom and contribute to the country that gave him hope. He encouraged any Afghans who were in the United States and at risk of deportation following the loss of their TPS to flee to safety in Canada.

“I cannot go back,” he said. “My life—my faith, my future—is in danger in Afghanistan.”