Religious groups ask Trump administration not to deport Afghan Christians

Members of Apostles Raleigh, an Anglican church in North Carolina, have spent the past week lobbying the government not to follow through with part of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

“This is certainly not a liberal congregation,” Julie Tisdale told WORLD. And yet, its members are writing letters to Congress in protest of a Trump administration policy ending the legal immigration status of 22 Afghan Christians in their congregation. One of the Afghans, 25-year-old Nashinas, was arrested and tortured for being a Christian not long after the Taliban took over the country in 2021. WORLD is using a pseudonym for him to protect the identity of his family members in Afghanistan.

Nashinas escaped the country in 2022 and eventually made his way to North Carolina, where he now attends Apostles Raleigh. On April 11, he received an email from the Department of Homeland Security telling him that his immigration parole was terminated and he had seven days to leave the country.

“I don’t believe the Trump administration intended to send Christians who have never committed any crime to their deaths in Afghanistan,” said Julie Tisdale. “I don’t think that was ever the intent of this administration. And, inadvertently, I think that some of these people have been caught up in a broader immigration policy.”

Religious advocacy groups throughout the United States have taken up the cause of Afghan Christians like Nashinas. They are asking the Trump administration to allow an estimated 300 Afghan Christians to remain in the United States because sending them back to their home country could put them at risk of torture and death for their faith.

In a statement to WORLD on Tuesday, Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, said he personally talked to leaders in Washington on behalf of Afghan Christians. “I spoke with Sen. Lindsey Graham about it this week, and I know that other leaders in Washington are discussing this issue with the president,” he said. “I have also been told that the deadline has been pushed back in order for cases to be reviewed. I appreciate the efforts to try and help Afghan Christians in this country.”

WORLD reached out to the White House and the State Department to confirm whether the administration had pushed back the deadline set for Afghans to self-deport but did not receive a response in time for publication.

The end of immigration parole for Nashinas and others like him is in line with efforts by the Trump administration to rein in the use of temporary protected status (TPS) and other forms of parole that it believes previous administrations have abused. The administration argues that those programs, intended by Congress to provide temporary assistance to foreign refugees, have become avenues for quasi-permanent residence in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security said earlier this month that Secretary Kristi Noem had reviewed conditions in Afghanistan and Cameroon and determined that those countries no longer satisfied the statutory requirements that would allow the federal government to extend TPS for refugees from those countries beyond their upcoming end dates. The administration also terminated TPS status for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but federal judges have blocked those decisions from taking effect.

During Tuesday’s White House press briefing, WORLD asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the administration was looking into ways it could protect Afghan Christians from being forced to return to their home country. Leavitt replied that temporary protected status was supposed to be temporary and that concerned Afghans could apply for asylum.

“If you step back, the message to Afghan allies right now is: ‘We’re not sure what’s happening to you,’ That’s not just bad policy — it’s a breach of moral trust with those who risked their lives alongside ours,” said Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of Afghan Evac, which advocates for Afghans who helped the United States military. “It’s harming real people: college students, moms with newborns, and, yes, Afghan Christians who now face the very real threat of being sent back to Taliban-controlled territory.”

Nashinas is in the country on humanitarian parole, a program that, like TPS, protects immigrants who face dangerous conditions in their home country from deportation. He has applied for asylum and has court dates scheduled for next month and mid-September. The court should decide whether he’s allowed to stay in the United States, he said, not an email telling him he has seven days to leave the country.

Nashinas said his situation is different from that of migrants who come to the United States because of economic hardship. “I was not seeking for benefits. I was not seeking for a better life—I was not seeking something like that. I was in danger. I ran out of Afghanistan because of my life,” Nashinas said. “If I go back to Afghanistan, it is like I am [going on a] suicide mission.”

Immigration advocacy organizations such as World Relief and Global Refuge have criticized the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS for Afghans. World Relief noted that many Afghans who supported the United States during the war on terror could be sent home through the program and into the hands of a hostile regime. A spokesman for Global Refuge said the organization has met with members of Congress to lobby for the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would establish a path to permanent residency for Afghan refugees. Global Refuge is also providing legal aid to immigrants and working to raise public awareness of their plight.

“Our team is actively working with Afghans who may soon face the loss of legal protections to assess their options, prepare filings, and ensure they understand their rights,” Global Refuge’s Timothy Young told WORLD.

In Raleigh, Tisdale said she and other members of her church don’t want to challenge the administration’s broader immigration policies. They are targeting their activism to help refugees like Nashinas who share this country’s values.

“I would say to the administration, ‘I don’t think these were ever the people you intended to catch up in this policy,’” Tisdale said. “‘And so now I would ask you to do the things that you need to do in order to ensure that these people are protected.’”

WORLD’s Lynde Langdon and Carolina Lumetta contributed to this report.